President of Ukraine Victor Yushchenko has issued directives for Prime Minister Victor Yanukovych to hold the gas talks in Moscow.
President’s Deputy Chief of Staff Oleksander Chaly claimed this to a press conference today.
“The President issued a respective decree, and is working with the government in this sphere at the level of directives. Tomorrow the Prime Minister of Ukraine leaves for Russia – he has directives concerning his position in the gas row at the tomorrow talks in Moscow”, O.Chaly said.
He stressed that the President clearly outlined the Ukraine’s position concerning the “so-called” debt of Ukraine to Gazprom. “There is no debt of Ukraine to Gazprom”, A.Chaly emphasized, adding that there is no debt of Ukrainian corporate subjects, including “Naftohaz Ukrayiny” NJSC. At the same time, O.Chaly pointed out that other structures – UkrRosEnergo and UkrGazEnergo are not subject to the Ukrainian law.
O.Chaly stressed that this is the problem of corporate relations, and is, without any doubt, in the field of responsibility of the Ukrainian government, which keeps on holding talks with RF on natural gas supplies.
“In my opinion, we should not dramatize the situation, we should resist the statements, which, probably, provoke Ukraine into some unreasonable steps”, O.Chaly said, adding that the existing corporate agreements must be fulfilled.
As UNIAN reported earlier, Ukrainian Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych will visit Russia on Tuesday for talks on gas debts. Yanukovych will meet his Russian counterpart Viktor Zubkov with the aim `of developing bilateral economic cooperation,` Sergiy Levochkin, a Ukrainian government official, said to journalists. Earlier this week, Yanukovych said he was ready to fly to Moscow to resolve a dispute over a debt of 1.3 bln usd (920 mln euros) claimed by Russian gas giant Gazprom for exports to Ukraine.
