Azerbaijan helps out Belarus to settle gas debts with Russia

"I appealed to President Ilham Aliyev, and he lent me 200 million dollars in a day, even less than in a day. And as a result, we managed to pay our debt to Gazprom for 100%," the Belarus leader noted.

Lukashenko said he had asked the top-management of the Russian gas giant to delay the debt payment. "We asked them:" Give us a respite for two weeks to repay our debt". But our allies, the closest people to us, said:" No, we will not wait even a day", presidential press service quotes the Belarusian leader as saying.

Lukashenko also stressed that the gas conflict is "absolutely groundless from Russia`s position", because the dispute arose that time, when Gazprom had to pay 260 million dollars for Belarus` services on gas transit. At the same time, according to Alexander Lukashenko, "we had a debt to them for a period when we were negotiating (we had paid for gas at old price) - 187 million dollars (they admitted that 187 million)".

The Belarusian leader also stressed that conflicts like this "have taken place not for the first time between Russia and transport transit states - Ukraine and Belarus".


/AzerTAc/