Russian premier Vladimir Putin won't attend a gas conference in Sofia this week because of differences over the South Stream gas pipeline project, Bulgaria's government said Wednesday.
"The Russian Prime Minister will not participate," even though Putin's visit had been "practically confirmed," Foreign Minister Ivaylo Kalfin told reporters.
"The Russians are linking the prime minister's visit to the signing of a contract covering (Bulgaria's participation in) South Stream," Kalfin explained.
However, "we have not yet reached an agreement at an experts' level" on the South Stream project, the minister said.
"And from Bulgaria's point of view, it wasn't acceptable to link what is a bilateral issue with participation at the summit."
During a trip to Bulgaria in January 2008, Putin, then Russian president, negotiated a deal covering Bulgaria's participation in the South Stream gas pipeline which will bring Russian gas to Europe.
South Stream is a project of Russian energy giant Gazprom and ENI of Italy that will transport Russian gas under the Black Sea to Bulgaria and then branch off to Austria, Greece and Italy.
Bulgaria, which already transports Russian gas to Greece, Serbia and Macedonia via its own gas transportation network, doesn't want its existing pipelines to be used in South Stream and insists that a separate network of pipelines be built instead.
But according to a recent report in the Dnevnik daily newspaper, Russia is pressing for the use of existing pipelines for the project.
The issue is likely to be discussed when Bulgarian Prime Minister Sergey Stanishev travels to Moscow on April 26-28.