Putin: No plans to reduce oil and gas flow to Europe

Aug 31, 2008, 19:04 GMT

Moscow - Russia will meet its delivery obligations for gas and oil to Western Europe regardless of the conflict over Georgia, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Sunday.

There are no plans to reduce the quantity of gas and oil flowing to the West, the Interfax news agency reported Putin as saying.

Britain's Daily Telegraph had reported that Moscow has plans to reduce the supply of gas and oil if the European Union (EU) decides to impose sanctions on Russia for its recent actions against Georgia. The bloc meets for an emergency summit on Monday to discuss a response.

Moscow formally recognized the independence of Georgia's breakaway regions Abkhazia and South Ossetia on Tuesday. The breakaway provinces fuelled a brief but bloody Russian-Georgia conflict earlier this month.

Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili said Sunday he hopes the EU summit produces a clear message of support for Georgia and protests what he called Russia's theft of Georgian territory.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier warned Sunday against 'borrowing from the recipes of the Cold War' and said 'other political solutions' would have to be sought.

Steinmeier said the conflict between Russia and Georgia, and the subsequent deterioration in relations between Moscow and the West was a very serious crisis that threatened the European security architecture of the past three decades.