Belarus: compromise reached with Russia in oil row

Belarus and Russia have reached a compromise on a dispute that disrupted the flow of Russian oil to some European countries, the Belarussian president said on Wednesday.

Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin "came to a compromise, which would help settle all the problems including those connected with Russian oil transit to European states via Belarus", after talking on the telephone, news agency BelTA reported, citing the presidential press service.

The Kremlin issued a terse statement on the two leaders' telephone talks without mentioning the compromise.

Moscow and Minsk have been at loggerheads over the transit of Russian crude oil through Belarus to Europe. Transit shipments along the Druzhba pipeline were halted over the weekend, affecting Poland, Germany, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

A day earlier, Putin ordered the government to consider cutting the country's oil production but to continue talks with Belarus. Talks in Moscow on Tuesday ended without an agreement.

At the start of the year, Moscow imposed export duties on crude oil supplied to Belarus. Minsk then slapped a new customs duty on Russian oil transiting through Belarus, which Russia rejected.

Source: Xinhua