KIEV, Jan. 22 – Ukraine’s top security body may postpone its scheduled meeting to review the recent natural gas deal with Russia as international pressure on Kiev has been mounting to leave the deal untouched.

Jose Manuel Barroso, the president of the European Commission, reportedly called President Viktor Yushchenko and Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko on Thursday seeing to prevent any potential complications in gas supplies.

Tymoshenko’s press service issued a statement with details on the phone call late Thursday.

Also, the press service said that Barroso had told Tymoshenko about his phone conversation with Yushchenko on the same issue earlier in the day.

Yushchenko’s office did not report on the phone call with Barroso.

Meanwhile, the meeting of the National Security and Defense Council, which was originally scheduled on Friday, will probably be postponed, Unian news agency reported citing a source familiar with the situation.

Yushchneko’s office declined to comment on the issue.

The council was supposed to review the recent natural gas deal between Ukraine and Russia that had been brokered by Tymoshenko and her Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin over the weekend.

The deal ended a 20-day standoff between Ukraine and Russia over natural gas prices and opened the way for Russian gas supplies to the European Union via Ukrainian pipelines.

The deal, however, was criticized by Yushchenko for establishing high natural gas prices for Ukraine in the first quarter, while at the same time leaving unchanged the fee that Ukraine charges Russia for moving its gas to the EU.

Yushchenko welcomed the resumption of Russian gas supplies to the EU via Ukraine, but said that extra measures were needed to be taken to protect domestic consumers from a steep hike in gas prices this year.

Tymoshenko has a seat on the NSDC, a body that is otherwise controlled by the president. The NSDC is allowed by the legislation to approve decisions that are mandatory for the government. But the Tymoshenko government has previously refused to implement some of the body’s decisions.

The deal between Ukraine and Russia for the first time ever established a formula to be used to figure out future gas prices between the two, potentially preventing annual disputes over prices.

But critics of the deal said the formula establishes the base price of gas at $450 per 1,000 cubic meters, which is the highest gas price among other European customers of Gazprom.

Yuriy Boyko, a former energy and fuel minister and a member of the opposition Regions Party, said the government had effectively “agreed to Ukraine’s obligations to pay for gas more than any other country in the European Union during the next 10 years.”

“I think that those involved in brokering the deal will have lengthy conversations with law enforcement agencies,” Boyko said.

Boyko is a close friend of Dmytro Firtash, the biggest individual shareholder in RosUkrEnergo, which used to be the only gas supplier of gas to Ukraine since the summer of 2004.

The deal brokered by Tymoshenko removed RosUkrEnergo from lucrative gas trading operation. (tl/ez)