Vladimir Putin won Ankara's approval yesterday for a Moscow-backed gas pipeline to cross Turkish waters to Europe, countering rival EU-sponsored plans, and signed deals to help make Turkey a key regional energy hub.

Turkey's Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said his country had allowed Russia to proceed with the South Stream pipeline that Moscow aims to build ahead of the European Union-supported Nabucco link from the Caspian - a scheme meant to cut Europe's reliance on Russian gas.

His Russian counterpart Putin said Moscow had decided in turn to support an oil pipeline led by Italy's Eni and planned to run from Turkey's Black Sea town of Samsun to the Mediterranean oil hub of Ceyhan.

"Turkey gave Russia permission for necessary studies to be carried out that would lead the South Stream pipeline through Turkey's exclusive economic zone in the Black Sea," Mr Erdogan said at a joint news conference with Mr Putin.

Russia, which supplies a quarter of Europe's natural gas, wants to build gas supply routes quickly to bypass Ukraine and other ex-Soviet states after disputes with Kiev over transit payments in recent years disrupted flows.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.