Erdogan: "Turkey tries to allocate its Shah Deniz share to Georgia"

"We are doing our best to allocate 800 million cubic meters of gas to Georgia from Turkish share by this July. This is our promise," Erdogan said at joint news conference in Tbilisi with the Georgian and Azerbaijani leaders.

But President Saakashvili said at the same news conference that Georgia will start receiving Turkey's share of gas as soon as Shah-Deniz will be put into operation.

"At first I want to say that we will be receiving Turkey's quota as soon as Shah-Deniz is put into operation. At the same time Azerbaijani will gradually increase gas supplies to Georgia. It means that share of more reliable and cheaper gas in the Georgia's gas consumption balance will increase," Saakashvili said.

Georgia tries to convince Turkey to give up part of its Shah Deniz gas quota for months already as Tbilisi wants to decrease share of expansive Russian gas. But no final agreement has been reached yet.

According to the Turkish media reports Ankara is hesitant as it has a commitment to deliver part of its Shah-Deniz quota to Italy and Greece.

The Turkish Prime Minister also noted at the press conference in Tbilisi that all Turkey, like Georgia and Azerbaijan face certain problems in energy supplies.

"But it is important to solve these problems based on solidarity between these three countries," PM Erdogan said.

President Saakashvili also noted at the news conference that the most important is that the three countries managed to put into operation an alternative route of energy supply.

"This is alternative route for Europe [to transport] oil and gas… That is why we call cooperation [between the three countries] historic," Saakashvili added.

In Tbilisi three leaders signed a declaration on joint vision of regional cooperation.

Transport Ministers from Azerbaijan and Turkey and Economy Minister of Georgia signed an agreement on construction of Baku-Akhalkalaki-Kars railway.

Azerbaijan and Georgia has also signed an additional agreement envisaging allocation of USD 200 million loan to the Georgian side for construction and rehabilitation of its section of Baku-Akhalkalaki-Kars railway. Civil Georgia