A looming battle between Russia and Belarus was on hold Friday, with officials in both countries announcing gas supplies to Europe would flow uninterrupted despite the dispute, according to dpa. Gazprom, the Russian natural gas monopolist, had threatened to reduce volumes delivered to Belarus by 55 per cent as of Friday, because Minsk had not paid the previous six months' gas bill in full. The conflict had threatened to spike fuel prices in Europe, as some 25 per cent of all Russian natural gas sold to Europe travels to markets via Belarusian pipelines. Deliveries would nonetheless continue in full for the time being, Gazprom officials in Moscow said, only hours after a 10 a.m. Moscow time deadline had passed. Gas supply from Russia were uninterrupted on Friday, and volumes travelling to Europe were unchanged, officials from the Belarusian natural gas transport company Beltransgaz said in Minsk. Belarus avoided the cut-off by paying Gazprom in the early hours of Friday 190 million dollars of an outstanding 464 million dollar debt, 15 minutes before the Gazprom deadline, Interfax news agency reported. Gazprom executives tacitly acknowledged Belarus had made the payment, but insisted they wanted full payment "within one week," or they would reduce volumes by 30 per cent. The 30 per cent figure corresponds to the outstanding Belarusian debt, after the 190 million dollar payment is taken into account, said Sergei Kuprianov, a Gazprom spokesman, on the Ekho Moskvy radio channel. Aleksander Lukashenko, Belarus authoritarian leader, on Thursday announced his government would pay off the debt by the end of August using credits supplied by Venezuela, and possibly European loan institutions. A Belarusian negotiating team was in Moscow discussing the conflict with Gazprom representatives, but according to Kuprianov the Russian energy company had little hope talks alone would resolve the Belarusian debt. "We talked all of July (with the Belarusians) and there was no result, and so we were forced to resort to extreme measures," he said. "And as you can see, they had a positive effect." EU officials throughout the week had described the situation as "worrying," and called on the two sides to resolve their differences peacefully. Lukashenko has argued Belarus merits reduced rates from Gazprom because Belarusians working in Russia during the Soviet era helped develop Gazprom's massive energy reserves - a point of view rejected by the Kremlin.
