Georgia acknowledges electricity debts to Turkey, agrees to repay

Georgia has acknowledged it owes Turkey for electricity it received over seven years in the early 1990s and says it will repay Turkey over a period of 20 years until the debt is cleared.

Last year the Georgian side acknowledged it owed Turkey money after borrowing 1.7 billion kilowatt hours of energy between 1990 and 1997, however this week Turkish media reported the countries had agreed on repayment terms.

Today Georgia’s Ministry of Energy confirmed Georgia would supply Turkey with one billion kilowatt hours of electricity as part of a deal to pay its electricity debt.

Between 1990 and1997 Turkey supplied Georgia with 1.7 billion kilowatt hours of electricity, the price of which has still not been paid off. The debt was recognised as early as 1997 by signing of a bilateral protocol by the then Minister of Energy during his visit to Turkey,” said the Ministry of Energy in a statement.

The term for paying off the debt was defined as 20 years. The debt will be gradually repaid by supplying electricity back to Turkey,” the Ministry added.

The statement noted Turkey had reduced Georgia’s debt after the two countries signed a deal on April 9, 2015.

The deal itself was about deepening electricity cooperation between Georgia and Turkey and aimed to build electricity transmission lines between the countries.

That agreement also stated Georgia would repay its electricity debt to Turkey within the next 20 years.