July 19, 2007 (LPAC)--The Turkish major daily newspaper Hurriyet and the Iranian news agency IRNA reported that on Monday the US State Department criticized the preliminary agreement by Turkey and Iran last week to build pipelines to ship natural gas to Europe from the fields in Iran and neighboring Turkmenistan via Turkish territory.

"We don't think that now is the time to be making such investments in that particular sector. Iran hasn't necessarily proved itself to be the most reliable partner in this regard," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said in obvious effort to isolate Iranian regime.

Meanwhile according to AP, Turkey's Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul and the Iranian diplomatic representative in Turkey yesterday defended the agreement, the latter calling on the United States not to meddle in the region's affairs. The gas pipelines in question are planned to be some 3,500 kilometers long and to transport up to 40 billion cubic meters of gas. The final treaty is probably going to be signed in August. AP also connects this agreement with plans to extend the Nabucco pipline which is going to be built between Turkey and Austria, which is expected to start working in 2012.