The US Department of State is about to include the Nord Stream 2 and Turkish Stream projects in a list of sanctions. This was announced on June 15 by the head of the State department Mike Pompeo.
According to Pompeo, after having been excluded from the sanctions list, these 2 projects will be subject to the sanctions imposed in 2017 by the CAATSA act.
Pompeo clarified that now all investments in Nord Stream 2 and Turkish Stream may become the basis for the introduction of US sanctions. “Leave now or wait for the consequences,” he added.
According to Pompeo, the United States does not consider both projects to be commercial – according to him, they can be considered tools of the Kremlin’s pressure on European countries. Nord Stream 2 and Turkish Stream, according to Pompeo, undermine the security of NATO countries.
A few days before Pompeo’s statement, Klaus Ernst, head of the Bundestag committee on economics and energy, contacted the US authorities and urged them not to tighten sanctions against Nord Stream 2. He added that this will adversely affect partnerships between countries.
CAATSA stands for Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act. In accordance with this federal law, sanctions were imposed against organizations and people who are considered involved in cyber attacks against the United States. In addition, the law proposed the imposition of sanctions against companies involved in oil production and against pipelines for export.
In early June, the US Senate introduced a bill on sanctions against Nord Stream 2. Republicans have proposed imposing restrictions on everything related to pipe laying. The bill also proposes to include in the sanctions list companies involved in ship insurance and equipment.
Nord Stream 2 is a gas pipeline project that runs along the Baltic Sea from the Russian coast to Germany. It was supposed that it would be completed at the end of 2019, but first the process was stopped by Denmark, which demanded permission to lay through its exclusive economic zone, and then US sanctions. As of today the pipeline is 93% completed.
With reporting from RTVi.
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