Official Ashgabat expects Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban to pay a visit to the Turkmen capital soon in order to expand bilateral cooperation, the Neutral Turkmenistan newspaper reports.
President Serdar Berdimuhamedov and Chairman of the People's Council of Turkmenistan Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov wrote this in a congratulatory letters on the occasion of Orban's 60th birthday.
"I am confident that the talks to be held in Ashgabat in the coming days will be fruitful and give a new impetus to the further development of bilateral cooperation," the head of state said in his message.
In turn, the head of the supreme representative body expressed hope that the visit "set to be an important step in further expanding the Turkmen-Hungarian partnership".
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union the two countries exchanged high level visits: the Hungarian President visited Ashgabat in 2011, and the Turkmen leader arrived Budapest eight years later.
The European Union has long sought a way to expand the list of Caspian energy suppliers to include Turkmenistan, which has the world's fourth-largest gas reserves.
European countries have been receiving gas from Azerbaijan through the Southern Gas Corridor (SGC) infrastructure linked to Turkey since late 2020. Hungary will be one of the recipients by the end of this year. Turkmenistan, for its part, has been supplying its gas to Azerbaijan via Iran since 2022, helping the Caucasian country meet its domestic fuel needs.
Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó had previously said his country was very interested in direct access to Turkmen gas.
One possibility is the construction of the 300 km Trans-Caspian gas pipeline from Turkmenistan. The Presidents of Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Turkey discussed the project in Awaza, near the Caspian Sea, in December.
According to experts, other areas of business partnership in which Ashgabat and Budapest are also interested are pharmaceuticals, transport and the area of irrigation and water management systems.
Credits: Eziz Boyarov
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