Another Attempt to Solve Gas Crisis: Russian and Ukrainian PMs To Have Intergovernmental Talks

According to Russian News Agency RIA Novosti Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Timoshenko was the initiator of the next stage of negotiations.

Tymoshenko said she had requested a telephone conversation with her Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, to determine a date for a new round of talks.

The meeting was scheduled for January, 17, it will be held in Moscow.

During the conversation the PMs considered a general concept for resolving the gas dispute. In addition, they discussed conditions to resume gas transit to Europe.

The Ukrainian PM also sent a telegram guaranteeing that the entire volume of gas pumped to the country's gas pipeline system would be carried on further to Europe except for 8 percent of the volume used for gas pumping facilities.

The telegram also guarantees payments to be made later for the technical gas as soon as Russia and Ukraine agree on a gas price for Ukraine.

Ukrainian press office defined the conversation as "constructive," adding that Timoshenko believed a tradeoff was quite possible.

At the same time, some controversial information appeared in the media.

For example, a popular Russian daily said on Wednesday that under a cooperation agreement Kiev and Washington signed in December, the United States would modernize Ukraine's crumbling pipelines and could receive control of the network, which transits around 80% of Russia's Europe-bound gas.

RIA Novosti also quoted Ukrainian Communist Party leader Petro Symonenko saying that on Tuesday the network was 75% owned by Dmytro Firtash, co-owner of the RosUkrEnergy gas trader.

Tymoshenko herself supposed that the talks broke down because Ukrainian politicians were making an attempt to preserve RosUkrEnergy as an intermediary, though earlier on Wednesday, the Ukranian premier blamed Russia for the failure to restore shipments to Europe, saying Moscow had supplied inadequate volumes of transit gas and demanded Kiev use the wrong pipelines.

Author: Ksenia Kochneva