Excerpt
Remarks at the State Department Correspondents Association's Inaugural Newsmaker Breakfast
Secretary Condoleezza Rice
Fairmont Hotel
Washington, DC
January 5, 2006
QUESTION: If I can move to Russia. We saw a certain move by Russia the last few days, halting oil to Ukraine and Europe. The Russian support for Belarus continues. There are elections in Belarus in a couple months. Russia has just assumed the chairmanship of the G-8. Do you have any concerns about the responsibilities a major player in the world's (inaudible), as Russia would like to be, as it assumes the chairmanship of such an important organization?
SECRETARY RICE: Well, it was not a good week from the point of view of Russia's demonstrating that it is now prepared to act in a -- as an energy supplier in a responsible way in energy markets. And I think that point was made very, very clear to the Russians. Perhaps even they were a little surprised at how clearly the point was made by European states in particular, that would have suffered from what appeared to us to be politically motivated efforts to constrain energy supply to Ukraine. The game just can't be played that way.
I mean, when you say you want to be a part of the international economy and you want to be a responsible actor in the international economy, then you play by its rules. And nobody said that Ukraine should not eventually -- Ukraine and Russia shouldn't eventually get to some market-based price for gas. After all, everybody's trying to break down the old structures of the Soviet Union, which were inefficient and wasteful.
But when you do it in the way that this was done, with an obviously political motive, of course it causes problems. And yes, I think it was ironic and not good that they did it on the day practically that they became G-8 chairman. And I think that kind of behavior is going to continue to draw comment about the distance between Russian behavior in something like this and what would be expected of a responsible member of the G-8.