(VOVworld) – Russian President Vladimir Putin said Tuesday, after his meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, that Russia hasn’t abandoned its plan to build the South Stream and Turkish Stream pipelines.

A worker welds pipes during the symbolic start of the construction of the Bulgarian section of the South Stream pipeline. (Photo: Reuters)

Mr. Putin said Russia froze the South Stream project in December, 2014, because, apparently, the European Union (EU) pressured Bulgaria to suspend the part of the project on its territory.

The undersea South Stream pipeline is designed to deliver sixty-three billion cubic meters of gas across the Black Sea from Russia’s Beregovaya compressor station to the Bulgarian coast.