Russian President Vladimir Putin said on February 1 that last year Moscow took into consideration Georgia?s desire to purchase cheap gas from Azerbaijan and did not pressure Tbilisi to immediately sign a contract with Gazprom.
Speaking at his annual news conference, Vladimir Putin said that he had ?a difficult dialogue? with his Georgian counterpart Mikheil Saakashvili on energy issues when the two Presidents met on the sidelines of the CIS summit in Minsk on November 28.
?Despite a difficult dialogue over energy issues, we have solved this issue. We understand the willingness of our Georgian partners to purchase gas below the market price. And we gave [the Georgian side] the opportunity to solve this problem without any confrontation. And you know that there were talks with Turkey and Azerbaijan [carried out by the Georgian side],? Putin said.
In December the Georgian leadership held intensive negotiations with Azerbaijan and Turkey aimed at increasing its gas share from Azerbaijan’s Shah-Deniz field, but the talks failed. As a result, gas distributors and major gas consumer companies in Georgia had to sign deal with Russia?s Gazprom on the purchase of gas for USD 235 per 1000 cubic meters.
Putin said that Turkey itself has problems with gas supplies.
?Last year Iran supplied insufficient gas to Turkey. I do not know why. Our Turkish friends requested for us to increase gas supplies and we have done this? We know what is happening in the region. So we have been calmly waiting for the results of these consultations [between Georgia, Azerbaijan and Turkey] and have agreed on a market price ? USD 235 per 1000 cubic meters? We respect this position of our Georgian partners and, as was planned, we have returned our Ambassador [back to Georgia]. We hope that it was a first step towards the normalization of all our problems,? Putin said.
He also said that Russia?s decision to return its Ambassador to Georgia was a step towards the normalization of ties between the two countries.
?We see the Georgian press is drumming: the ambassador is back, we have won. OK, let them have this kind of feeling; we have a more moderate stance about it. This move [return of the ambassador] should contribute to the normalization of ties, and this is the most important thing,? Putin said.
Putin noted that during the meeting with President Saakashvili last November, both of them agreed that the CIS is a useful venue for bilateral meetings and negotiations.
?When I last met with the Georgian president in Minsk [in November, 2006 on the sideline of a summit of leaders from Commonwealth of Independent States] a question – whether the CIS is at all needed and, if yes, why ? was asked. And both of us have reiterated that if not for the CIS and its instruments there would not have been a meeting with Mikheil Nikolayevich [Saakashvili] and we would not have been able to talk about the problems that have emerged in the relations between our countries. At that meeting we pinpointed the major problems, and in general we [outlined] the ways towards the normalization of ties,? Putin said.
Putin made these remarks in response to a question asked by a Georgian journalist from the Public Broadcaster about whether Russia was planning to resume transport links with Georgia following the return of its ambassador to Tbilisi. But there was no direct answer to this question.
In a separate question asked by a Russian journalist about Moscow’s relations with its neighbors, Putin said that Russia has not yet been able to normalize relations with Georgia.
?We are building partnership relations with all countries, but with some countries we have especially closer relations – I mean with CIS-member countries – although there are also some problems. For example, with Georgia we have not been able to normalize our ties recently,? Putin said.
This post is also available in: ქართული (Georgian) Русский (Russian)