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Thursday, 09 October 2003
PUTIN SAYS RUSSIA WILL KEEP CONTROL OF CIS PIPELINES
By empty (10/9/2003 issue of the CACI Analyst)
Speaking at a joint press conference with German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder in Yekaterinburg on 9 October, President Putin said that Russia will not relinquish control over the pipeline infrastructure on the territory of the former Soviet republics. The gas-pipeline system was built by the Soviet Union, he said, and only Russia is in a position to keep it in working order, \"even those parts of the system that are beyond Russia\'s borders.\" Putin said that it would only be possible to provide cheap Russian energy resources to the European Union if Moscow is able to keep the pipeline system in Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan functioning with Russian technical supervision.
Speaking at a joint press conference with German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder in Yekaterinburg on 9 October, President Putin said that Russia will not relinquish control over the pipeline infrastructure on the territory of the former Soviet republics. The gas-pipeline system was built by the Soviet Union, he said, and only Russia is in a position to keep it in working order, \"even those parts of the system that are beyond Russia\'s borders.\" Putin said that it would only be possible to provide cheap Russian energy resources to the European Union if Moscow is able to keep the pipeline system in Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan functioning with Russian technical supervision. (polit.ru)