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Putin at a news conference with Fico on Monday. The two countries also agreed to cooperate on nuclear power.
Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico asked for stable gas supplies from Russia and pushed for to help build a gas storage facility in his country during talks with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Monday.
Fico said Putin reiterated that last winter’s painful disruption in supplies to Europe could recur if Ukraine, a main transit route for the gas, defaults on any of its monthly payments for its own imports.
“We agreed with the prime minister that if this situation occurs, we will be informed in time,” Fico said at a news conference after the talks.
At the same time, he stressed that his country would expect Gazprom to honor its contract to supply 6.5 billion cubic meters of gas — without any glitches.
“Of course, the strategic interest of the Slovak Republic and the Slovak government is for this agreement to be implemented to the last point,” he said.
Slovakia was among the worst hit countries during cutoffs last January that interrupted gas flows throughout much of Europe for more than two weeks.
Putin, speaking at the same news conference, said Russia would do as much as it can to comply with the contracts.
Fico also made an effort to advance the talks with Gazprom that would lead it to set up a joint venture with Slovak companies to build and operate underground gas storage facilities. Such facilities would reduce the country’s vulnerability to potential cutoffs from transit disputes. That venture would also distribute gas to private end consumers and Slovak enterprises, Fico said.
The prime ministers agreed that there were “no barriers” for creating the venture, but that work still needs to be done to hammer out the details, Fico said.
Slovak Economy Minister Lubomir Jahnatek said Friday that the government was “a bit upset” about long talks on the subject with Gazprom. Jahnatek and Energy Minister Sergei Shmatko held preliminary talks in Moscow on Friday.
The countries also agreed to cooperate in the nuclear power area, Fico said. Slovakia currently uses Soviet-built nuclear power reactors.
Slovakia would be interested in hosting a leg of an expanded broad-gauge railway, planned to run from Ukraine to Austria, if that would increase business for its river ports and the Bratislava airport, Fico said.
Russia backs the expansion because it would allow Russian Railways to send more cargo to Europe.
Slovak proposals on the railway extension will be “thoroughly studied and, of course, implemented as part of the broader plan,” Putin said.
Putin said he would discuss the plan with his Ukrainian counterpart, Yulia Tymoshenko, when they meet later this week.
“The project is moving ahead and moving well,” he said.
