KIEV, Feb. 3 – Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko was forced to meet Turkmenistan’s ambassador to ease tensions over a controversial natural gas pipeline that she had suggested to build and which Ashgabat had questioned last week.

Tymoshenko, while on a visit to Brussels last week, campaigned for the construction of White Stream pipeline bypassing Russia on the way from Turkmenistan to Ukraine and to the European Union.