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C. Boyden Gray: The Russian factor shows itself in the US policy over the Caspian region

20 March 2010 04:32 (UTC +04:00)

According to former top US diplomat, after president Obama came to power his policy on re-starting the relationship with Russia didnâ€™t give any results, yet and â€œthis influences the regional processesâ€™.

â€œIf talking especially about energy, one of the problems is that Russian Gazprom is a rather ugly monopoly, and hell hath no fury like a monopoly challenged. People will kill to keep their monopolies. This is a core issue in the European-Russian problem. A key reason why Russian gas is being flared is because Russian operators cannot get their gas into Gazpromâ€™s pipeline networksâ€ â€“ he added.

Analyst mentioned that, â€œif Gazprom was forced to open up its pipeline system for non-discriminatory access to third parties in Russia and for parties outside Russia, the bulk of the supply problems would disappearâ€.

Speaking about the Nabucco project, former ambassador stressed that the U.S. should be involved and deeply engaged on this project. â€œTaking Nabucco as a specific project, we try not to take sidesâ€.