"Starting talks with Russia regarding the agreement on cooperation at this time would be somewhat premature," Urmas Paet told journalists in Vilnius, Lithuania's capital, adding that Poland should be supported in its resistance to the new agreement.
Talks on a new deal to replace the current Partnership and Cooperation Agreement (PCA) set to expire in December were to be launched at a summit in Russia on May 18, but may have to be delayed again after Poland extended its November 2006 veto on Monday, citing Moscow's refusal to lift an import ban on its meat, which it calls political.
The EU foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, said earlier on Tuesday that the EU was not ready to start PCA talks. However, he played down the delay in an interview with RIA Novosti, saying that differences were inevitable in international relations, and that Europe and Russia had learned to discuss them in an open and constructive way.
Solana admitted, however, that a week-long siege of the Estonian Embassy in Moscow, triggered by the removal of a Soviet war memorial from central Tallinn and a relentless anti-Estonian campaign in the Russian media, had also overshadowed relations between the EU and Russia.
Foreign Minister Petras Vaitiekunas earlier voiced his backing for the Estonian position, saying Russia has distanced itself from the EU by banning Polish meat and failing to resume oil supplies to Lithuania on the Druzhba pipeline within a year's time.
Lithuania threatened to block the PCA talks if Russia fails to resume oil supplies from the Druzhba pipeline, suspended last July after a purported accident. Russian authorities have said repairs are still continuing, but the Baltic nation insists the suspension is politically motivated.
Media reports also said that Poland and Lithuania, seeking to reduce their energy dependence on Russia, were angered by President Vladimir Putin's Caspian gas deal with the Kazakh and Turkmen leaders last week, which dealt a blow to a rival project to build pipelines from Central Asia bypassing Russia, proposed by Europe and the U.S.
The PCA between Russia and the EU was signed June 24, 1994 in Corfu, Greece. The document came into force on December 1, 1997. It is valid for 10 years and will be extended further if the two sides deem it useful and necessary.
