Macedonia's Foreign Minister Nikola Poposki took part Tuesday in the Budapest meeting on energy security in Central and Southeast Europe, along with his counterparts from Hungary, Greece and Serbia, as well as Turkey's Minister for EU Affairs.

The meeting, held on the initiative of Hungarian FM Peter Szijjarto, addressed the countries' interest in supporting diversification of routes and sources for gas supply from Turkey, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a press release.

At the meeting, the ministers signed a joint declaration on strengthening the cooperation in ensuring energy supply security, which would contribute to the good neighbourly relations between the participating countries and to the welfare of their citizens.

They expressed their support to create a commercially viable option of route and source diversification for delivering natural gas from Turkey via the territories of Greece, Macedonia, Serbia and Hungary to the countries of Central and South Eastern Europe, which would enable the participating states: to support the energy markets of Turkey, the European Union and the contracting parties of the Energy Community through the Southern Gas Corridor; to work on new possibilities for creating regional economic development via interconnecting the natural gas infrastructures of the participating states with European Union financial assistance; and to welcome in cooperative spirit other willing countries of the region to participate in these efforts, the declaration reads.

"Today's meeting in Budapest has yielded two vital conclusions. The first one refers to setting up a technical team that will appraise the economic justification and possibility for constructing a pipeline, which will deliver gas from Turkey, via Greece, Macedonia, Serbia and Hungary to the markets of Central and South Eastern Europe. The second one is related to future monitoring mechanism, namely for participating states to join forces for providing funds if such possibility (pipeline construction) occurs," Poposki said.

At the gathering's sidelines, Poposki had separate meetings with his Hungarian and Greek counterparts Szijjarto and Nikos Kotzias respectively, as well as Turkish Minister for EU Affairs Volkan Bozkır.