Separately, Bilgic said, the engineering work for a proposed gas pipeline stretching from Turkey into Austria via Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary, has made good progress. “We are in talks with the European Union officials,” he said. “The EU aims to diversify its natural gas suppliers and routes.” The proposed Turkish-Austrian connection will transport Iranian gas into Europe. But energy sources said this line would also require serious investment, given its current decrepit situation. Turkey and Greece have agreed to connect their energy pipeline networks, although the Greek pipeline system is not connected to the western European network. Industry sources said an underwater pipeline that would connect the Greek network with the Italian network was under consideration, but this construction would require serious incentives for investors. “No one would invest to build such a pipeline without a firm contract that would make a commercially feasible investment,” said a European source. “There is no Greek-European network yet, and it’s not a foregone conclusion that there will ever be one.” Investors would most probably want to see firm guarantees from Ankara before spending money or renovating a natural gas pipeline connecting Turkey to the European markets, an issue which eventually raises the question of whether Turkey wants to be a transit country. Without Turkey guaranteeing clear and advantageous terms for the transit of natural gas from eastern suppliers to western consumers, and in the absence of legally-binding contracts, nobody would be in a good mood to invest money, the same source said. He said the high price for the gas supplied by Iran may also be discouraging for potential European clients. There are political obstacles too. One European diplomat in Ankara said that there was a role that Iran could well play in exporting energy to global markets and admitted that Turkey could be the “missing link”. But, he said, “no serious business project between the EU zone and Iran is likely for the foreseeable future as long as the EU complaints over Iran’s nuclear programme are in place.”