ANKARA, July 13 (Xinhua) -- The Nabucco intergovernmental agreement signing ceremony and summit began in Turkish capital city Ankara on Monday.

    During the summit at the newly-built Rixos Hotel in Ankara, an intergovernmental agreement will be signed by Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary and Austria for the Nabucco Project which will transport natural gas to Austria via Turkey.

    Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, Romanian Prime Minister Emil Boc, Hungarian Prime Minister Gordon Bajnai, Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann, Bulgarian Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso are attending the summit.

    Tight security measures have been taken in and around the Rixos Hotel in the city.

    The 3,300-km-long Nabucco pipeline is designed to pump gas from the Caspian region to Austria through Turkey. The route, which also goes through European Union (EU) member states Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary, bypasses Russia, the largest gas supplier for Europe.

    Talks between Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary and Austria on the pipeline started in January and were finalized last month. The five countries will sign an agreement concerning the project’s legal framework on Monday.

    The pipeline will ultimately be able to pump 31 billion cubic meters of gas per year by 2020, or about 5 to 10 percent of the total gas consumption of the EU by that time.

    Construction of the pipeline is expected to begin in 2010 with a total cost of 7.9 billion euros (11 billion U.S. dollars).