Ukraine is willing to scrap or renegotiate a gas deal with
Russia that ended a pricing dispute between the two countries,
Prime Minister Yuri Yekhanurov said on Wednesday.
"On behalf of the Ukrainian side, our proposal to Russia is that
we are prepared to denounce all agreements or specific points from
them and draft new ones if they do not suit the Russian side,"
Yekhanurov told a cabinet meeting.
Yekhanurov's remarks came a day after Russian President Vladimir
Putin said parts of the deal were questionable and involved dubious
corporate structures.
Last Thursday, Russian gas monopoly Gazprom and Ukraine's
state-controlled gas company Naftogaz signed a five-year deal, in
which Ukraine will pay US$95 per 1,000 cubic meters of gas, nearly
double the previous price.
Ukraine had insisted on having gas supplied through the RosUkr
Energo consortium, although Putin told Spanish journalists ahead of
a visit to Madrid that its structure and activities were unknown to
him and Gazprom.
Before Kiev and Moscow inked the deal, parliamentary rivals of
Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko said the proposal betrayed
national interests, sparking a bitter row which has plunged the
country into a constitutional deadlock.
But Yushchenko, who has defended the accord, says his government
will remain in place ahead of a March 26 parliamentary
election.
With gas prices a sensitive election issue, Yekhanurov was due
to discuss the deal later on Wednesday with prominent figures,
focusing particularly on the subject of how prices might be raised
for industrial customers.
(Xinhua News Agency February 9, 2006)
