"Americans pressuring South Stream countries"

"Americans pressuring South Stream countries"

BELGRADE -- South Stream will be built, and as early as in 2016 Serbia will begin to receive substantial budget revenues from the pipeline, says Sergei Naryshkin.

"South Stream will be built, I have no doubt about it. They laying of pipes in Serbia will start this year and everything is ready for it. As soon as in 2016 Serbia will begin to receive significant revenues to its budget from South Stream," the chairman of the Russian State Duma told the Belgrade daily Politika in an interview.

Naryshkin, who was visiting Serbia this week, made the comments when asked whether works on the natural gas pipeline would continue and when it might be completed.

Naryshkin also noted that the countries participating in the project were coming under pressure, and specified that this pressure came "from American partners."

"It is quite obvious that the South Stream project will bring economic results of all those who participate in it, as well as to Europe as a whole, but our American partners care about their own geopolitical and economic interests," said the Duma chairman.

According to Naryshkin, "they want to use the complex situation with Ukraine to open a new, rich European market for their gas extracted from shale." But, the Russian official noted, this gas would be "much more expensive than that transported from Russia and Azerbaijan to Europe."