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(Bloomberg) — Turkey is in talks with the US over a sanctions waiver that would allow the country to keep using Russia’s Gazprombank to pay for natural gas imports.
Without an exemption, “we won’t be able to pay Russia,” Energy Minister Alparslan Bayraktar told reporters late Monday. “If we can’t pay, we can’t buy the goods.”
Bayraktar’s comments add to tensions between Washington and the remaining European buyers of Russian gas over the sanctions announced last week on Gazprombank, which had previously avoided penalties related to the invasion of Ukraine because of its key role in facilitating energy payments.
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“If there is no exemption, it may amount to something very big for Turkey,” the minister said. He cited previous waivers on Iran-related sanctions as a precedent.
Russia is Turkey’s biggest gas supplier, providing about 42% of its imports last year, according to regulator data.
Hungary, another major importer, has criticized the US move against Gazprombank, saying it jeopardizes energy security. Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto told Bloomberg last week that regional countries “will find a way” to continue flows, following talks in Istanbul with regional energy ministers, including Bayraktar.
Although Turkey provides combat drones and critical artillery shells to Ukraine’s military, Ankara hasn’t sanctioned Russia over the conflict. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has instead sought to broker peace between the warring parties and revive a United Nations-backed deal that he helped engineer in 2022, which allowed Ukrainian grain exports via the Black Sea.
Ankara and Moscow want to establish a natural gas hub in Turkey, including the possibility of laying more undersea pipelines through the Black Sea. Beyond gas, Turkey relies on Russia for about half of its crude-oil imports, has one Rosatom nuclear-power plant under construction and is in talks for a second.
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