Kiev, Jan 23: Ukraine wants to rewrite the gas deal
signed with Russia that ended a weeks-long standoff that
deprived several European countries of gas, the Presidency
said on Friday.
The comments prompted a derisive reaction from Russian
gas giant Gazprom, which said they were only fit for printing
in a "Ukrainian comic".
"The Ukrainian side is working on suggestions for
changes" to the contracts signed earlier this week, said the
deputy head of President Viktor Yushchenko`s administration,
Oleksandr Shlapak.
"We are planning to start contacts with the Russian side
for talks in summer at the latest," he added, describing the
gas deal as a "capitulation" by Ukraine before Russia.
But Gazprom`s chief executive Alexei Miller rubbished the
notion of renegotiating the contract, in terse comments made
in the Uzbek capital Tashkent.
"Such statements could only appear in a Ukrainian comic,"
Russian state television quoted him as saying.
The gas conflict ended when Ukrainian Prime Minister
Yulia Tymoshenko and her Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin
agreed a new contract for the supply of gas to Ukraine and its
transit to Europe.
However Tymoshenko and Yushchenko have been engaged in a
bitter political feud and the presidency has already said it
was "devastated" by a contract which it believes sells out
Ukraine.
Under the new contract, in the first quarter of 2009
Ukraine will pay Russia USD 360 per 1,000 cubic metres of
natural gas and the price would change quarterly.
That rate is double the USD 179.50 Ukraine paid last year
under terms far better than the market prices paid by EU
countries for Russian gas.
Bureau Report
