The United States signaled that Nabucco is its preferred planned natural gas pipeline among the project’s other rivals.

“We made it clear that we support the Southern Corridor. We also made it clear that the Nabucco pipeline is preferable strategically and politically. It will be hard to answer whether these projects will be complementary or competitive since the initial gas is coming from the Caspian,” Richard Morningstar, special envoy of the United States Secretary of State for Eurasian Energy was quoted by Hurriyet as saying.

He also welcomed possible Iraqi Kurdish participation in planned Europe-bound pipelines, saying, however, that the Kurdish regional administration and the central government in Baghdad must first resolve their disputes on power and revenue sharing.