The heads of governments of Russia and Belarus Dmitry Medvedev and Alexander Lukashenko are unable to negotiate a settlement to the dispute over Russian gas supplies, told reporters the head of the Ministry of energy of Russia Alexander Novak.
“Unfortunately, I do not agree completely, primarily due to the fact that the Belarusian side is not ready to repay the accumulated debt without providing the Russian party preferences, and the timing, mechanism of price formation”, — said the Minister (quoted by TASS).
Novak noted that the total debt of Belarus for delivered to her earlier, gas is more than $700 million, calling the refusal of the payment of the non-constructive position.
“We note not enough constructive position of the Belarusian side. However, the negotiations continue. We didn’t start this conflict, and we expect that the position of the Belarusian side will be more constructive,” — said the Minister.
At the beginning of last Thursday in the Hills the meeting with the Belarusian Prime Minister Medvedev called the source “to look for solutions and answers to the problems that have emerged recently”, but optimism about the outcome of the negotiations was not known.
“Our meeting is quite working, pretty short, but I hope that will be any good,” said Medvedev, noting that the conversation of heads of government held in the run-up scheduled for April 3 meeting of the leaders of the two States.
As is now clear, the breakthrough has not happened and now the dispute will be addressed directly to Vladimir Putin and Alexander Lukashenko. Speaking about the agenda of the forthcoming meeting, the press Secretary of the President of Russia Dmitry Peskov on Thursday said that the two leaders will discuss, in particular, and “economic differences in terms of bilateral relations.”
28 Mar 2017 Lukashenko said that he and Putin “excellent relations” and expressed confidence that all problems can be solved.
“If there are any problems, we will resolve them. Without intermediaries, we will decide together, and we don’t need no mediation. We are brothers, we have nothing to share” — then said Lukashenko.
