Briefing for Journalists at the International Press Centre
July 17, 2006.Part 3
Strelna, St Petersburg
Брифинг для журналистов в Международном пресс-центре
17 июля 2006 года
Санкт-Петербург, Стрельна
QUESTION: Mr President, you adopted a text on energy security today. This text indicates that gas prices could rise again next year. Could you give some more detail on this?
VLADIMIR PUTIN: This is a strange way in which you have linked the declaration adopted today to a possible price rise for natural gas. On the contrary, the more security we have in the energy sector, the more stable prices remain.
Natural gas prices, all the more so Russian natural gas prices, are set not in the Kremlin, not through some kind of unilateral decision, but are determined by the market. I can tell you once again how this takes place. The gas price for an individual country is equivalent to the average gas price on the market the previous year plus a small coefficient, the average gasoline price plus a small coefficient and the average heating fuel price. The price of gasoline and heating fuel are pegged to the price of oil and do not depend on us. I would like this to be clear for once and for all. We have left behind the time when we set out own prices for our partners. Now it is the market that decides and I cannot think of a more transparent mechanism.
Incidentally, oil prices are rising, and do you know why? The recent events in the Middle East have been one of the factors driving prices up, as have events in other countries in the region and various disasters in the oil-producing countries of Central and North America. These are all factors pushing up the price of oil on the markets.
But I want to stress that all of our endeavours aim at minimising the risks and thus stabilising prices.
QUESTION (EGYPTIAN TELEVISION): Vladimir Vladimirovich, todays statement on the Middle East makes reference to everything except to the fact that the root of the problem lies in Israels non-fulfilment of all the Security Council resolutions and the Roadmap. Do you not think that todays statement mixes up the cause and effect? That is, the cause of this explosion in the Middle East is not that Hezbollah violated the border and so on, but that Israel is not fulfilling the Security Council resolutions.
VLADIMIR PUTIN: I do not think that we are confusing the cause and the effect because no matter what the circumstances, there is no justification for abducting people or launching rocket strikes from the territory of one country against the territory of another. But there is a certain amount of truth in what you say and, to disclose a little of what went on behind the scenes here, we used this argument to arrive at some of the compromise wording in our statement.
QUESTION (IZVESTIA): Everyone thought that energy security would lead to stormy debates at this summit, but in the end everything seems to have gone quite smoothly. Why is this?
VLADIMIR PUTIN: Because we worked very hard throughout the whole year. I would like to thank our colleagues and experts from the G8 countries for their hard and professional work all year. The documents were of a high quality and did not lead to particular discussion.
QUESTION (AL JAZEERA): Vladimir Vladimirovich, the G8 summit has responded very swiftly to the events in the Middle East, even sending a special representative to the region. Have you received any feedback from the conflicting parties, in particular from Hezbollah regarding the Israeli soldiers and their return, or from Hamas regarding the soldier it is holding? And have you received any feedback from Israel on ending military action?
Thank you very much.
VLADIMIR PUTIN: We do have feedback, not regarding our statement as yet, unfortunately, but regarding our attempts to work for a ceasefire and reduce the number of human casualties. We have this feedback from all the parties involved in the conflict. I cannot say that these are very optimistic observations, but I do hope nevertheless that common sense will prevail. We have two-way communication with everyone you have named. We have normal, practically ongoing, live contact. Incidentally, this helped us in our work today on the resolution.
This is indeed perhaps Russias advantage that it has kept open channels of communication with all the participants in this conflict. Furthermore, I think that we have quite a high level of trust with everyone involved.
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В.Путин.Ответил на вопросы в Давосе.28.01.09.Part 1by niknikolay7,995 views
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