30-01-01 Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze left for Ankara at the start of two-day official visit to neighbour Turkey expected to focus on security issues and a controversial oil pipeline project. Ankara and Tbilisi have developed friendly ties since Georgia gained independence after the 1991 dissolution of the Soviet Union. Over the past three years, Turkey has donated some $ 13 mm for Georgia's defence needs.
The two countries are also cooperating on a major oil pipeline project, heavily backed by the US, that will carry oil and natural gas from Azerbaijan through Georgia to the Turkish Mediterranean port of Ceyhan, bypassing Russia. On the eve of his departure for Turkey, Shevardnadze was due to confirm his country's budget for the first six months of the $ 2.4 bn pipeline project. However, senior government officials in Tbilisi remain tight-lipped about the exact amount Georgia will be investing in the project, whose construction is due to begin this year.
The pipeline is due for completionin 2004 and is expected to carry more than 350 mm barrels of oil a year. Nevertheless the project has come under criticism for its high budget amid concerns over whether Azerbaijan has enough oil to make the pipeline from Baku commercially viable.

The Baku-Ceyhan agreement was signed by in November 1999 by Shevardnadze, his Azeri counterpart Heydar Aliyev of Azerbaijan and former Turkish president Suleyman Demirel. The same countries, along with Turkmenistan, have also signed an agreement for a 1,943 km gas pipeline, costing $ 2.5 bn, across the Caspian Sea, to deliver Turkmen gas to Turkey. Construction is due to finish at the end of 2002.
Both deals are seen as giving the United States a major economic and political foothold in the turbulent Caucasus region, because the pipelines would give the former Soviet republics more independence from Russia, which currently controls the region's oil and gas resources. The pipelines would also cut out Iran from the oil-transportation route to Europe from Central Asia.
During Shevardnadze's visit to Turkey, the former Soviet foreign minister is also expected to broach the vexed question of stability in the Caucasus region, which has been plagued by ethnic conflicts since the fall of the Soviet Union. "In the course of the last few years, relations between Georgia and Turkey have developed a significant rhythm... because the two countries have common strategic interests," Shevardnadze's spokesman Shalva Pichkhadze told. In 1992, when Shevardnadze came to power in Tbilisi, "poverty and chaos were smothering Georgia, but Demirel saved us by extending a 50-million-dollar credit," Pichkhadze added.

Turkey is Georgia's second largest trading partner, after Russia. Last year, Tbilisi's commercial exchanges with Ankara rose to $ 112 mm, or 13 % of Georgia's overall trade, according to official figures. During the visit Shevardnadze was expected to hold talks with Turkish Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit and President Ahmet Necdet Sezer.
"The visit of President Shevardnadze will present a golden opportunity to promote the very good relations that exist between the two countries in all areas of life," Sezer's spokesman Tacan Ildem said.