TEHRAN - Iran plans exporting as much as 5 million cubic meters of natural gas daily to Syria by the end of this year after construction of a pipeline via south Turkey is completed.

The decision was made during the meeting between Iran’s Oil Minister Massoud Mirkazemi and his Syrian counterpart Sufian Allaw in Tehran on Thursday.
The pipeline will be used to meet Syria’s ""urgent needs"" for gas until the start of a pipeline through Iraq that will supply 40 million cubic meters of gas a day, Shana news agency reported, citing Mirkazemi.
Iranian officials will meet with their Iraqi and Syrian counterparts this month or the next to finalize a contract on the export and transit of gas, according to the report.
Iran and Syria signed a preliminary agreement on January 19 for the construction of a 2,000-kilometer (1,250-mile) network to carry Iranian gas via a 56-inch (142-centimeter) pipeline with a daily capacity of as much as 110 cubic meters.
The managing director of Iran’s National Gas Company, Javad Owji, said in February that the new corridor of natural gas to Europe will pass through Iran, Iraq, Syria, southern Lebanon territories and also through Mediterranean basin.
Owji said that the agreement, by means of which the natural gas of Iran’s South Pars and Assalouyeh fields will be transferred to Europe, was reached in Damascus meeting between the officials of the two countries.
Syrian Oil Minister Sufian Allaw visited Tehran in August 2010 to discuss the possibility of shipping Iran’s gas to Europe through Syrian territories. Both sides reviewed plans to build an oil refinery and infrastructure in Syria to transport Iranian oil