Washington’s sanctions against Nord Stream 2 must be suspended, as well as the construction of the gas pipeline itself. This is the opinion of Nicholas Burns, adviser to the US President-elect Joe Biden, and he shared his opinion in an interview with the German newspaper Handelsblatt, published on January 15.
The construction halt is necessary for confidential and quiet negotiations between the United States and the countries involved in the project, Burns said.
“The Europeans must stop the construction of Nord Stream 2, and the Americans must suspend the sanctions,” Gazeta.ru quotes him.
As specified in the publication, the Nord Stream 2 AG company is in no hurry to continue work on the construction of Nord Stream 2 in the waters of Denmark. At the same time, a new schedule for laying a gas pipeline in the exclusive economic zone of the kingdom is ready.
As the operator explained, first you need to check the technical equipment, the process will take several days. As a result, the decision to resume construction will be made only in late January or early February.
On January 13, information appeared that the US State Department had warned a number of European companies, which, according to the American department, are helping in the construction of the project, about the possible risk of sanctions against them by Washington.
After that, the director of the third European department of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Oleg Tyapkin, said that Moscow was confident in the implementation of the project to build the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, despite pressure from Washington.
Nord Stream 2 is being built from Russia to the Federal Republic of Germany along the bottom of the Baltic Sea with the aim of direct and reliable gas supplies to Europe. The EU countries mainly support the project and participate in its implementation. The USA, the Baltic states, Poland and Ukraine are against.