Russia and Turkey have reached an agreement on speeding up the procedures needed to launch bilateral energy deals, the Russian premier said on Tuesday.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev paid an official visit to Ankara in mid-May and signed deals including on the construction of Turkey's first nuclear power plant and an oil pipeline.

“The visit [of Medvedev] was very fruitful and extremely important deals in the sphere of energy, including nuclear energy, were reached,” Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said at talks with his Turkish counterpart.

Putin arrived in Turkey on Tuesday to attend the third summit of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia (CICA) and hold bilateral talks with top officials from Turkey and other countries.

“Now we have agreed that in the near future all the necessary intergovernmental procedures will be undertaken to make these projects work,” Putin told journalists after talks with Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Moscow and Ankara have successfully cooperated in the energy sphere, including on the Blue Stream gas pipeline project, the South Stream gas pipeline and the Samsun-Ceyhan oil pipeline.

However, experts say the construction of the nuclear plant, evaluated at $20 billion, will be problematic due to the lack of harmonized legislation between Russia and Turkey.

MOSCOW, June 8 (RIA Novosti)