KIEV, Jan. 19 – The creation of a trilateral joint venture for the exploitation of the Ukrainian gas transport system (GTS) involving the EU and Russia should be completed before 2014, Prime Minister Mykola Azarov said.

"I stress that if the issue of the operation of our GTS in a trilateral format is not resolved in the next two or three years, then Ukraine will be left without its GTS – it will simply not be needed by anyone," he said in an interview with Channel 5, which was broadcast late on Tuesday.