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Ukraine not to contest 2009 gas contracts with Russia

On October 25, Ukraine’s Prime Minister Nikolai Azarov said that he hoped to agree with Russia on new gas prices over the coming months

KIEV, October 27 (Itar-Tass) —— Ukraine is not planning any longer to contest at international courts gas contracts with Russia, which were signed in January of 2009, the country’s Minister of Energy and Coal Industry Yuri Boiko said on Thursday.

“We shall change the existing agreements only over negotiations,” he said. The minister explains the decision by “the strategic character of relations with Russia,” the Kommersant-Ukraine reports.

On October 20, Yuri Boiko commented on negotiations between Ukraine and Russia saying that the two countries should reach agreement on several directions in order to settle the ‘gas’ disputes.

“It should be a model, which would be mutually acceptable for the economies of the two countries and which would follow mutual national interests,” he said.

On October 25, Ukraine’s Prime Minister Nikolai Azarov said that he hoped to agree with Russia on new gas prices over the coming months.

“We shall agree the prices with Russia next month,” he said.

Earlier, Ukraine’s President Viktor Yanukovich claimed the intention to contest at the Stockholm Court of Arbitration the gas contracts of 2009. On October 11, Kiev’s Pechera Court sentenced former Prime Minister Yulia Timoshenko for seven years’ imprisonment for excess of authority during signing of the gas contracts with Russia in 2009.

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