Russia's state gas monopoly Gazprom said it would resume supplies to Europe via Ukraine on Friday if an agreement allowing an EU-led monitoring team to track gas flows through Ukraine was signed.
"We hope that a protocol on establishing an international independent mechanism to ensure transit of Russian gas via Ukraine will be signed today, and we will resume deliveries almost at once," Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller told Russian President Dmitry Medvedev at a meeting in the Black Sea resort of Sochi.
Medvedev said gas supplies to Ukraine would be resumed only after the necessary documents were signed.
"Of course we are interested in gas transit resumption as soon as possible. But... all these actions can be performed only after the documents are signed," he was quoted by the RIA Novosti news agency as saying.
Shortly after the meeting, Miller told reporters that Kiev had agreed to allow Russian energy officials into Ukraine, removing a key obstacle to a document on restoring gas deliveries to Europe.
"Ukraine... accepted the proposal to create an international multilateral monitoring commission comprising representatives of Gazprom, Naftogaz (Ukraine's state gas company), Russian and Ukrainian energy ministries, European companies receiving Russian gas and an independent monitoring organization," Miller said.
"We hope now work will go in a fast and constructive way, and the Ukrainian side will stick to agreements reached verbally," he said.
Miller said earlier that Gazprom was ready to resume gas supplies to Europe via Ukraine once international monitors were in place. A group of EU monitors arrived in the Ukrainian capital of Kiev on Friday.
Russia cut gas supplies to Ukraine on Jan. 1 over a pricing dispute, and shut down gas flows intended for Europe via Ukraine on Wednesday.
The cutoff left thousands of European families without heating at the height of winter, prompting the EU to broker a deal to end the row.
The EU depends on Russia for one-fourth of its gas supply, the bulk which comes via Ukraine.
(Xinhua News Agency January 10, 2009)