Brussels - Ukraine will stand by the terms of the deal which
ended its gas row with Russia, even though not all the details are to
its liking, President Viktor Yushchenko said on Tuesday.
But Russian officials questioned his reliability, saying that the
political rivalry between Yushchenko and Prime Minister Yulia
Tymoshenko could still lead Kiev to cancel the contract.
'The agreements signed are not easy ones, but Ukraine fully takes
up the performance (of its commitments) and guarantees full-fledged
transit to European consumers,' Yushchenko told journalists in
Brussels after a meeting with the head of the European Commission,
Jose Manuel Barroso.
The assurance that Yushchenko would abide by the terms of the
agreement finalized by Tymoshenko was 'an important step forward in
allowing us to focus on our broader relationship,' Barroso said.
But the spokesman for Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said
that Moscow still feared that the growing rivalry between Yushchenko
and Tymoshenko, who are set to face off in next year's presidential
election, could torpedo the deal.
'We still unfortunately have certain nightmarish apprehensions
that the agreement signed last week could be reconsidered, just
because of a disagreement between the country's leadership,' Dmitry
Peskov said in an interview with Voice of Russia radio.
Yushchenko's visit to Brussels came a week after the end of a row
between Kiev and Moscow which had cut off all Russian gas supplies to
Europe through Ukraine.
The row ended in the signing of a 10-year contract between the
Russian and Ukrainian gas monopolies which Tymoshenko and Putin
brokered. Yushchenko had criticized some of the terms of the deal,
raising fears that he could reject it.
His working breakfast with Barroso, the head of the EU's executive
was dominated by the energy question, with both men highlighting the
need to upgrade Ukraine's gas-transit system and build more links
between Ukrainian and European energy markets.
'The gas transit system has to be in closer union (with European
systems), not only in a technical sense, but it should also be
involved in the organization of gas policy on the European
continent,' Yushchenko said.
The commission is set to host an international conference aimed at
gathering donations to upgrade Ukraine's gas-transit system on March
23 in Brussels. The EU and Ukraine have agreed to form a joint expert
group to plan the meeting, the leaders said Tuesday.
Yushchenko stressed the importance of that meeting, but said that
Ukraine's transit network was one of the most reliable in Europe.
'We are interested in the commission and the EU considering as a
reliable partner,' he said.
During the conflict, Barroso had warned that both Russia and
Ukraine were damaging their credibility as reliable partners.
But on Monday he said that 'in bilateral relations, we are not
taking any negative consequences from (the gas row) because we
believe Ukraine wants to deepen the relationship with the EU, and we
also want to deepen the relationship with Ukraine.'
He also said that 'we have to state very clearly that we were
disappointed by the problems between Ukraine and Russia,' and called
for political stability and reform in Ukraine.
His diplomatic balancing act is likely to have a frosty reception
in Moscow, where Peskov said that Russia 'would prefer to hear from
the European states a very serious and severe evaluation of who is
guilty for interrupting the transit.'
The gas crisis renewed EU interest in alternative supply routes.
On Tuesday, an international conference opened in Budapest to discuss
the Nabucco pipeline, planned to bypass Russia and Ukraine by
bringing gas from Azerbaijan to Europe.
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