Kiev agrees to meet Russian officials

Hurriyet Daily News with wires

"Ukraine ... has accepted the offer to create an international multilateral monitoring commission" including Russian officials to check gas flows through Ukraine to Europe, Gazprom chief Alexei Miller was quoted as saying. "We hope that things will now move quickly and constructively and that the Ukrainian side will abide by the agreement that it has so far accepted only in words," Miller said.

In a meeting with President Dmitry Medvedev earlier Friday, Miller said Gazprom would only resume supplies to Europe via Ukraine once Kiev has formally signed a deal on the deployment of gas monitors.

The gas shipment had not been restarted when Hürriyet Daily News & The Economic Review went to press Friday.

Iran increases gas
Meanwhile Iran raised the amount of its daily gas deliveries to Turkey to 18 million cubic metres from 12 million, an Iranian diplomatic source said on Friday according to a Reuters report.

Iran aims to raise the level of its gas exports to Turkey to the contract level of 28 million cubic metres per day after resolving technical issues, the source said. 'At this point last year, Iran was able to export only 1-5 million cubic metres of natural gas to Turkey. Now this figure has been raised to 18 million cubic metres from 12 million cubic metres,' said a senior Iranian diplomatic source. 'We're working to boost this even further in a short period of time,' he said. Turkey stopped operations at three power stations on Thursday after Tuesday's cut in Russian gas supplies over its western line in the pricing row between Kiev and Moscow that has affected gas supplies throughout southeastern Europe.