MOSCOW – The state-controlled company Gazprom said yesterday that it wants to more than double the price of natural gas for Russia's southern neighbor Georgia in 2007. The sharp increase, if implemented, is likely to reopen the debate on whether Russia is using its vast energy resources as a political weapon.
The prickly relations between the two countries reached a new low in late September after Georgia arrested four Russian military officers on charges of espionage and, days later, Russia imposed a transportation and communications blockade on the small republic.
The military officers were released, but Russia has spurned entreaties from the European Union and the United States to lift the blockade.
Relations have also been strained by two breakaway parts of Georgia, South Ossetia and Abkhazia, which are policed by Russian peacekeeping troops whom the Georgians accuse of stoking separatism. In the past month, Russia also began deporting hundreds of Georgians who officials said were illegally living and working there.
Word of Gazprom's preferred price came as Georgian Foreign Minister Gela Bezhuashvili met with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, yesterday in Moscow, the first high-level contact between the two countries since relations plummeted last month. But there was no sign of a breakthrough.
Gazprom said it wants to charge $230 per 35,300 cubic feet, up from $110.
