Turkey and Russia have held the first round of talks to build a new pipeline between the two Black Sea neighbors as Moscow seeks an alternative to the natural-gas link to the European Union it scrapped earlier this month amid political tensions over Ukraine. The negotiations started Wednesday following the memorandum Turkey signed with Russia during President Vladimir Putin’s state visit to Ankara last week, Turkish Energy Minister Taner Yildiz said on Thursday. Mr. Yildiz said final deliberations may last until 2020. It is too soon to say whether a new project will get the green light to replace the South Stream pipeline which Russia’s state-run energy firm Gazprom had undertaken to build, the minister said. The proposed new pipeline–billed “Turk Stream”–would be a major piece of energy infrastructure in its own right and help Turkey become an energy hub with a gas exporting capabilities that […]