The United States hailed as a "significant milestone" a deal signed Monday by Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary and Austria to build a gas pipeline aimed at reducing European reliance on Russia.
"This agreement is a significant milestone in achieving our shared vision of opening a new energy corridor that will bring Caspian gas to Europe," State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said in a statement.
In Ankara, the prime ministers of Austria, Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania and Turkey, inked the accord, hailing it as a milestone in the Nabucco pipeline project, long delayed by lack of commitment from gas-exporting nations.
The 3,300-kilometer (2,000-mile) conduit is planned to become operational in 2014 at an estimated cost of 7.9 billion euros (10.9 billion dollars), with a capacity to pump 31 billion cubic meters of gas from the Caspian Sea to Austria via Turkey and the Balkans, bypassing Russia.
Kelly said: "Energy security is gained through diversity -- diversity of energy sources, delivery routes and consumer markets and the Nabucco pipeline is an example of that diversity."
The intergovernment agreement "is an important step in realizing the Nabucco project," even further "hard work lies ahead," he added.
Representing the United States at the ceremony were Richard Morningstar, the special envoy for Eurasian energy, and Richard Lugar, the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Kelly said.
