OREANDA-NEWS. On June 17, 2009 The Prime Minister of Ukraine Yulia Tymoshenko declared Ukraine is a reliable partner for the European Union in the issues of natural gas transit. The Head of Government announced to a media conference in Luxembourg on the outcomes of the 13-th sitting of Ukraine-EU Cooperation Council.

Yulia Tymoshenko emphasized during the current year Ukraine has been paying timely for gas: payments have not been a day delayed, keeping to the schedule. “We are reliable partners but at this hard time of the global financial turmoil we need allies to pump up natural gas into the storages,” Yulia Tymoshenko underlined.

She also assured in the topic of transit of Russian gas to Europe everything will be predicted and, she said, there are no grounds to expect any worsening of situation with shipment of Russian natural gas to Europe on the part of Ukraine.

The Premier reminded Ukraine had never afforded closure of Russian gas shipment to the European Union, which had been confirmed by special experts of the Eurounion.

Moreover, Yulia Tymoshenko emphasized Ukraine and Russia had inked Agreement for gas supplies for a term of 10 years: “It means we will not have to sign any additional documents in the end of year”.