Ukrainian deputy comments on Ukrainian gas pipeline system

It is necessary to create such conditions that Russia will be interested in using gas pipelines in Ukraine, Alexander Zinchenko, deputy head of the Ukrainian parliament, declared at today's parliamentary hearings in Moscow devoted to Russian-Ukrainian relations.

He pointed out that Ukraine was interested in the transportation of Russian gas. In this respect, it is necessary to organize tripartite negotiations with a gas supplier, a consumer and a country through which gas is transported. Zinchenko stressed that this question was not politicized; the construction of a gas pipeline roundabout Ukraine is an absolutely normal action of a country with a free market economy, he added. He noted that it was possible to transport 150bn-200bn cubic meters of gas per year using the Ukrainian gas transportation system.