World Bulletin / News Desk

Turkmenistan said Monday it would seek to "negotiate" with Gazprom after the Russian energy giant stopped buying gas from the Central Asian state.

Turkmengaz said in a press release that the "changing conjuncture on the international gas market" and "economic and financial issues arising at Gazprom Export" were behind the Russian company's decision to cut its gas imports from Turkmenistan as of January.  

Gazprom could not be reached for comment on Monday. 

Gazprom was once Turkmenistan's leading purchaser of natural gas, a role that been taken up by the China National Petroleum Company in recent years.

Ties between Moscow and Ashgabat have been strained since Russia announced in February it was reducing its purchases of Turkmen gas by nearly two-thirds, citing Gazprom's growing production capacity.

Turkmengaz has accused Gazprom of being an "unstable partner," and claimed in July that the Russian energy giant was "insolvent" and had refused to pay for gas supplied by the tightly-controlled Central Asian country.

That month, a source close to Gazprom told AFP that the company had turned to Stockholm's arbitration court to request that the price of gas in its current contract with Turkmengaz be adjusted to reflect the current market value.