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Russia and Ukraine still deadlocked after gas talks
(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-01-08 23:27 MOSCOW/BRUSSELS – Russia and Ukraine failed to resolve a gas row at a meeting in Moscow but will continue talks to end the dispute which has choked off supplies to Europe, a senior Ukrainian gas official said on Thursday.
"We are in negotiations," Ukraine's Naftogaz chief Oleh Dubyna told the European parliament after an overnight meeting with Alexei Miller, head of Russia's state-controlled gas monopoly Gazprom.
Gazprom fully suspended supplies of transit gas toward Ukraine on Wednesday, saying there was no longer any point delivering the gas because Kiev had shut down the pipelines. Ukraine said Russia was deliberately starving Europe of gas. Russia cut off gas for Ukraine's domestic consumption on New Year's Day after disagreements over gas prices and debts owed by Ukraine. South-east Europe has borne the brunt of the disruption, but it has affected supplies as far west as France and Germany as Europe faced freezing mid-winter temperatures. Hundreds of thousands of people across the Balkans went without heating on Thursday and more factories closed. In Turkey, production at three power stations was halted. European concern Dubyna was quoted by Interfax-Ukraine agency as saying the Moscow talks ended with "no concrete results" and that three-way talks between Naftogaz, Gazprom and the European Union in Brussels had been canceled at the behest of the Russians. A Gazprom official said no such talks had been planned. "There were no talks scheduled with the Ukrainain delegation for today at all. We have no clue which three-way talks Naftogaz is talking about," the official said. Gazprom said Miller would meet European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso. |
