Zee Beam News

01.03.2006 MosNews - Russia's President Vladimir Putin, who is in Budapest now with an official visit, has said on Tuesday, Feb. 28, that Hungary may become a strategic partner to Russia with regard to ensuring stable energy supplies to Europe. The Russian President said there was an opportunity to extend the Blue Stream gas pipeline further into Southern Europe, and Hungary could participate in that project. Vladimir Putin once again underlined Russia's reliability as an energy supplier. He was quoted by Russia's Channel 1 as saying: "Nobody in Europe should have any doubt about the reliability of Russian energy supplies to European countries. Russia has never disrupted the supplies, not a single time, even in the time of the biggest economic difficulties in the mid-1990s. Never. All our recent actions are aimed solely at raising the reliability of the fulfillment of contract obligations by our suppliers. I have said more than once and can repeat once again: after 15 years of negotiations we finally agreed with our Ukrainian partners to separate two issues — that of gas supplies to Ukraine and of [gas] transit to European countries."