BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

06/01/2007

Belarus makes conciliatory noises to Russia in energy dispute

MINSK (Russia), Jan 6 (AFP): Belarussian Prime Minister Sergei Sidorsky may travel to Moscow for negotiations next week, officials here said yesterday, as Minsk appeared to be seeking to defuse a rancorous spat over oil and gas between the two ex-Soviet neighbours.

Sidorsky is "ready to come on January 10 to Moscow," Deputy Economic Development Minister Andrei Sharonov told Moscow Echo, adding that Moscow saw this as a sign that Belarus was ready to negotiate.

A senior Belarussian foreign ministry official meanwhile said that Minsk was "ready to continue negotiations about the conditions of deliveries of Russian oil."

"I am convinced that we will be able to reach a mutually acceptable solution," Anton Kudasov told reporters.

Belarus and Russia had clashed again Thursday over a Belarussian demand for an oil transit tax.

The row came just days after Belarus narrowly averted a threatened cut-off in Russian natural gas supplies by agreeing to Russian monopoly Gazprom's demand for a more than doubling in price for imports.

Belarus' imposition of an oil transit tax responds to a Russian decision to impose export duties on crude oil that Belarus buys from Russia for refinery and sale onward to European clients. The duties took effect from the start of the year.

The two neighbours are in a formal, but largely symbolic political and economic union. Russia is the main financial backer of Belarus and authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko's sole major foreign ally.

But the New Year's trade spat has provoked angry accusations on both sides and revealed tensions within the partnership.

Source:

http://www.financialexpress-bd.com/index3.asp?cnd=1/7/2007§ion_id=24&newsid=48620&spcl=no