RUSSIA: German Chancello Angela Merkel and President Putin meet to ease EU-Russia tensions.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel met Russia's President Vladimir Putin to address European energy concerns and a standoff over meat imports that has pitted Moscow against the EU. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who holds the European Union's rotating presidency, met Russia's President Vladimir Putin in Sochi, on the Black Sea coast on Sunday (January 21), two weeks after Moscow cut off oil supplies to northeast Europe, reviving old doubts about Russia's reliability as an energy supplier. A Russian ban on Polish meat imports has been tainting relations too. After failed talks this week, Warsaw said on Saturday as long as the ban remained it would keep vetoing talks on a new partnership agreement between Russia and the EU. The two leaders, still tentatively building relations after the hearty friendship between Putin and Merkel's predecessor Gerhard Schroeder, also used the chancellor's one-day visit to coordinate efforts to revive the Middle East peace process. Merkel told Putin during a meeting on Sunday (January 21) at the Black Sea resort of Sochi that there was a need to improve communication with Russia on energy issues. She said it was necessary to avoid irritations between the EU and Russia. "We would like to have reliable relations at least as far as our energy supplies are concerned and that is why I think we should have a better exchange of views in the future over difficulties that may arise. I think we had a very good talk today and I think also that a partnership agreement could, at least from the side of the European Union, could contain passages where we could firmly agree on the mechanism whereby we would inform each other to avoid irritation, misunderstandings and disappointments. I believe that when you look at a long timeframe of 10 to 15 years, everybody realises that it is a strategic interdependency which, in a good sense, both the European Union and Russia can profit from. We are not very far apart, we need each other and that is why I think it is important to avoid the irritation that arose in the beginning of this year and last year," Merkel said during a news conference that followed the meeting. The EU's latest energy concerns were triggered when Moscow shut the Druzhba oil pipeline, which carries about 10 percent of Russia's crude exports to the bloc, because of a dispute with transit country Belarus. The pipeline was back in operation within days but the incident gave new vigour to a debate about energy security that had been bubbling in the EU since Moscow briefly cut off gas supplies to Europe almost exactly a year before. During their meeting Putin said Moscow wanted to establish with its partners clear rules on energy exports. "We want to cooperate with the transit countries but I would like to stress one more time that the relations should be based on clear and common principles for everybody, for everybody, without any political aspects. That is why we are telling everybody yes for cooperation and partnership and no to parasitism," Putin said. He added that Russia was ready for an open dialogue on energy with Europe. The two leaders also discussed the Middle East and said they supported the so-called Quartet of international mediators launching a new drive to revive the Middle East peace process. The Quartet -- the United States, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations -- is expected to meet in Washington on Feb. 2 to try to kick-start long-stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. And Merkel said they agreed that taking Iran to the security council was the right thing to do but that it was still important to make it clear to Iran that the door to talks remained open if Iran accepted the proposal of the European Union. During their meeting, which coincided with parliamentary elections in Serbia, Putin and Merkel also discussed the situation in the Balkans and the status of Kosovo. Merkel said she hoped national elections in Serbia on Sunday would strengthen democratic forces in the Balkan country. Putin said his country would only back international proposals on the final status of Serbia's Kosovo province if it was acceptable to both sides. Russia, historically a close ally of Serbia, is likely to play an important role in Kosovo's future because it could use its veto in the United Nations Security Council to block any proposal on the province's status. Moscow has so far backed Belgrade's rejection of proposals to give independence to Kosovo, saying that could set a dangerous precedent for other separatist regions, including Georgia's Abkhazia and South Ossetia and Moldova's Transdniestria.

ITN Source | January 22, 2007

Tags:. .supplier. .chancellors. .rotating. .pipeline. .vetoing