GERMANY: President Viktor Yushchenko says Kiev owes nothing to Russian gas giant Gazprom

Russia said on Wednesday (October 3) it had reached a deal with Ukraine over debts of $1.3 billion after threatening to reduce supplies, but President Viktor Yushchenko said Kiev owed nothing to Russian gas giant Gazprom. "I don't think it was the right move [from Russia] which helps to develop our mutual cooperation and appeared in a wrong form and at the wrong time. I want to say just the only thing that neither the Ukrainian state nor Naftogaz has debts to Gazprom," said Yushchenko in Berlin on Wednesday (October 3). Analysts said the spat, which revived European fears over stability of gas flows, was politically motivated. Moscow issued the threat as votes were being counted from a parliamentary election in Ukraine that showed gains for pro-Western parties. Yushchenko was in the German capital to hand over the annual 'Quadriga' prize shortly after ordering Ukraine's three bickering parties to strike their own deal on a post-election government, a move likely to aggravate a deadlock that has stalled economic reform. That appeared to reverse a pledge in the campaign to back a coalition composed of his pro-Western allies from the 2004 "Orange Revolution". He later went further, saying his rivals should be given top government jobs in the national interest. As the vote count drew to a close, the pro-Western president said stability could be reached only through a political understanding including both his "orange" allies and his arch rival, Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich. In Berlin, the president handed over the prize to Sweden's Queen Silvia. Organisers says the award honours personalities who have demonstrated renewal and pioneering spirit. Yushchenko, who received the same "United We Care" award last year, praised the work of Queen Silvia's World Childhood Foundation created in 1999 to support abused children and young mothers worldwide. Other prize recipients at the ceremony were former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, a German weekly publication and two mothers, one Jewish American, one a French Muslim, who befriended each other after one lost her son in the World Trade Center attacks and the other to a long prison sentence in the United States for involvement in the 9/11 preparations.

ITN Source | October 4, 2007

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