Gazprom, Naftogaz to Hold Urgent Talks as Kiev Prepares for Gas Imports Cut
TEHRAN (Tasnim) - Officials from Russia’s Gazprom and Ukraine’s Naftogaz are to hold an emergency meeting in Kiev for a last-ditch attempt to resolve their gas conflict. Earlier Kiev expected gas deliveries from Russia to be shut down on Monday.
“We are preparing a new meeting in Kiev in a format unlike our previous consultation,” Gazprom spokesman Sergey Kuprianov told ITAR-TASS.
“We are prepared to seek compromise, but pressuring us is useless. Our approaches to the accumulated load of problems have been voiced many times,” he added.
The meeting in the Ukrainian capital will also be attended by representatives from the European Commission, which is trying to mediate the gas negotiations.
The previous round of talks over the price of Russian gas for Ukraine failed to reach a solution to the standing Ukrainian $1.9 billion gas debt. Ukraine have not been paying for most of the gas supplied by Russia this year and demands that the contract on the deliveries be amended.
Russia offered a discount to the price, but Ukraine rejected it, saying it wants the price to be lower. If the conflict is not settled, Russia can stop supplying gas to Ukraine without an advance payment, a measure written in the contract, but has several times postponed doing it to continue negotiations.