( RIA Novosti ) - Russia could be invited to join the project to build the Odessa-Brody pipeline, designed to pump oil from the Caspian to Europe, bypassing Russia, a Ukrainian official said on Thursday.
"If Russia decides to participate in some capacity in this project, I am convinced that we should consider its proposal and invite it to join," said Olexander Shlapak, deputy head of the Ukrainian president's secretariat.
At an energy summit in Vilnius on Wednesday, the parties to the project, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Lithuania, Poland and Ukraine, signed an inter-governmental agreement on creating a legal and contractual base for its implementation.
Shlapak said the accords reached at the Vilnius summit met Ukraine's national interests and were not aimed at worsening relations with Russia.
At an informal energy summit in Warsaw in mid-May, Poland, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Lithuania and Ukraine endorsed the extension of the Ukrainian-Polish Odessa-Brody pipeline to Poland's Gdansk port and refinery in Plock.