MOSCOW, December 7. /TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Belarusian counterpart Alexander Lukashenko have agreed to hold another meeting this year to finalize the discussion of controversial issues, Russian Presidential Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said when asked how the December 6 debate on gas supplies between the two presidents ended.
"The Russian and Belarusian presidents agreed to hold another meeting before the new year, mainly to finalize the discussion of those issues in bilateral relations, which were among the controversial ones and on which considerable progress was made at a recent meeting in Sochi," he said.
Commenting on the debate on the gas issue at the EAEU summit in St. Petersburg on Thursday, Peskov noted that it had been "a very productive and very useful working event." "A working discussion does not always imply the unanimity of opinion. Different points of view were expressed, the parties disagreed on a number of issues. That shows that this is a living mechanism, which affects the interests of all participating countries," he stressed.
According to Peskov, "the EAEU has brilliant prospects, but no one doubts that there is a great deal of hard work ahead."
At a meeting of the EAEU summit on December 6, Lukashenko raised the issue of Russian gas supplies to Belarus, lamenting that gas prices were disadvantageous for his country. In response, Putin recalled that gas prices for Belarus were almost half as high as, for example, for Germany. Later on, Lukashenko told reporters that he had apologized to Putin for the harsh tone of his remarks.