RUSSIAN GAS SUPPLIER ANNOUNCES TO RESTRICT BOSNIAN GAS SUPPLY

SARAJEVO, Feb 20 (Hina) - Russian company "Gaseksort" announced Thursday that it would drastically reduce gas supply to Bosnia-Herzegovina from Monday, due to unpaid debts. #L# In an announcement forwarded to the Sarajevo-based company "Energoinvest", Gaseksport recalled that an agreement on the payment for gas supplied from October 1996 to February this year had not been respected and the debt grew to US$ 12.3 million. Spokesman of the Office of the high representative for Bosnia- Herzegovina, Colum Murphy, confirmed that the international community had given access for authorities in Bosnia to resources sufficient to pay off all debts set after the war, adding that it was not clear why the bills had not been paid. Co-Presidents of the Bosnian Council of Ministers Haris Silajdzic and Boro Bosic, said on Thursday that the paying of debts for the gas was the problem of the companies which had reached trade agreements and that they had to solve them. The overall debt of Bosnia-Herzegovina for gas supplied to it from Russia since 1991 to this day amounts to US$ 140 million, but an agreement was reached later that the debt be frozen and that, until a final solution is reached, the debt be paid only starting from the beginning of 1996. (hina) lm 202307 MET feb 97