(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-01-31 10:39

ALMATY - Turkmenistan dismissed Ukrainian remarks on Wednesday that a pipeline linking the gas-rich Central Asia with Europe would be built, reports from Turkmenistan's capital Ashgabat said.

The Foreign Ministry said in a statement that Turkmenistan does not have the slightest idea about the "White Stream" project and finds it hard to understand why some countries would make premature statements about it.

In her first foreign trip to Brussels this week after her cabinet was approved by parliament in December, Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko indicated the possibility of building a natural gas pipeline from Turkmenistan to the EU via the Caspian Sea and the Black Sea.

Some high-ranking officials of other countries made similar remarks earlier.

The statement said that as the usual international practice, energy exporting countries could unveil such a cross-country project only when they have reached consensus with all concerned parties.

Turkmenistan, one of the world's major natural gas exporters, boasts a projected gas reserve of some 24.6 trillion cubic meters.