VIENNA, July 1 – The timing of the next round of trilateral gas negotiations will be determined by the summer vacation season on one hand and by the upcoming heating season on the other, and the parties do not intend to drag out discussion of contentious issues, Ukrainian Energy and Coal Minister Volodymyr Demchyshyn told reporters on Tuesday.

"The next negotiations are planned. We agreed that the European Commission will formulate the protocol of today's meeting and reflect in it all contentious issues and bring them up for subsequent discussion. When this will be done we'll return to these negotiations. We'll see. I think that we shouldn't put this off for the distant future - the issues are very urgent and we certainly don't want to drag them out until the start of the heating season. We don't plan to drag this out until October. We understand that vacation periods will begin now, so we need to approach this issue very carefully so that it does not go into the fall," Demchyshyn said.