Germany's big gas pipeline deal with Russia has been criticised by a US official, in a sign of Washington's mounting unease about Berlin's ties with Moscow.
In at interview with Financial Times Deutschland, the FT's sister paper, Matthew Bryza, the US deputy assistant secretary of state for the Caucasus and southern Europe, indicated that the ˆ5bn (£3.4bn) Baltic Sea pipeline would deepen Europe's dependence on Russian gas.
"That project simply raises the question what diversification means when it comes to gas supply," Mr Bryza said. "If you live in Germany you do not want to go through what happened last winter with Ukraine [when Russia shut off the supply of gas] . . . I wonder as a US official how much diversification anybody can develop by having more pipelines into the same supplier."
Relations between Russia and the United States are at one of their lowest ebbs since the Cold War, partly because of US support for the "colour revolutions" in the former Soviet states of Ukraine and Georgia.
Washington is worried that Angela Merkel, German chancellor, is slipping from her intention to distance the German government more from Moscow than was the case under her predecessor, Gerhard Schröder.
US diplomats add that European states failed to give sufficient backing for Georgia when tensions between Tbilisi and Moscow recently rose because of a spy scandal.
In the interview, Mr Bryza cautioned Russia not to cut off gas to Ukraine again or to do the same to Georgia, which was denied gas for about two weeks last winter after mysterious explos- ions damaged a pipeline.
Mr Bryza echoed concerns voiced by some EU officials that the Baltic pipeline weakened European solidarity in negotiating with Moscow, particularly since it bypasses Poland.
In comments seemingly aimed at Russia's Gazprom, Mr Bryza said: "Very often the monopolist will work to cut a specific deal with an individual country . . . If that happens it's much harder for Europe to stand together."
He said Europe needed to work more with the Caspian area, and in particular Azerbaijan, if its dependency on Russian gas were not to soar.
He added that the US predicted that Russia would increase its share of Europe's gas market from 25 per cent today to 33 per cent within a decade, but that Azerbaijan could increase its exports to about a quarter of the Russian level, The Financial Times reported.
Meanwhile, the Polish Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski also took aim at plans for a Russian-German gas pipeline which bypasses Poland, and which a Polish minister earlier this year compared to the pre-war pact between Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin that led to the carve-up of Poland.
"With the decision to build this pipeline, the turbulence began in German-Polish relations," he said.
In Warsaw, Mr Kaczynski told a briefing ahead of the meeting with the German Chansellor Madame Merkel: "I believe Poland's energy security will be the most important problem raised during that discussion," The Scotsman reported.
The remind our readers that RUSSIA SELLS STOLEN GAS. Russia has no gas of its own.. The gas comes from Siberia, a Russian colony in Asia. The Russians invaded several Siberian states in the last centuries and took possession of foreign lands. Up till now, this bloody terrorist country refuses to leave Siberia.
May God punish Russia.
Buying stolen goods and helping thieves to sell looted property is at least an immoral and unethical action, to say it mildly, isn't it.
KC
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