Official Minsk does not comment on situation with gas

The press-service of the Belarusian government, the Energy Ministry and Beltransgaz Joint Stock Company have not been able to give “Interfax” on-the-spot comment.

As “Interfax” agency has found out, in the morning the government hold a regular consultations on the issues of energy, at which the gas issue is to be discussed possibly as well.

As it was informed earlier, at the meeting with “Gazprom” chief Alexei Miller, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev stated: “Considering that we cooperate with Belarus a partners, we will give a 5-day term for your counterparts for them to decide how to act further on”. “You should contact leaders of the appropriate Belarusian agencies who are dealing with these issues, and offer them to extinguish indebtedness in the shortest possible time”. “In case that would not be done, we would have to take severe measures,” the president stressed.

Russian President reminded that the issue of liquidating indebtedness to Gazprom by the Belarusian side was discussed at the recent meeting with Alyaksandr Lukashenka. Medvedev noted that the indebtedness to Gazprom for gas is about $200 million this year. As it was informed, Beltransgaz (in which 50% of shares are owned by Gazprom), earlier stated that the question of settlement of accounts for gas is being resolved at the top level.