"The talks will resume in the near future. I think next week," the minister, Sergei Shmatko, was quoted as saying by Interfax and ITAR-TASS news agencies.

He expressed surprise at media reports that the the negotiations had been cut off, claiming the interruption had been a "technical pause."

Last week, Interfax reported a suspension in talks over a 25-billion-dollar (20-billion-euro) loan package from China to Russian state pipeline monopoly Transneft and oil company Rosneft.

A source close to the talks said China wanted to attach "absurd conditions" to the loan package, which was to be offered in exchange for oil deliveries through a pipeline to be built in Siberia, Interfax reported.

Another source close to Chinese state oil company CNPC said China had asked for higher interest rates owing to the global credit crunch, the agency said.

Transneft and CNPC signed a long-awaited deal to build the pipeline at the end of October during a visit to Moscow by Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao.

The pipeline would run from Russia's East Siberia-Pacific Ocean trunk pipeline, which is still under construction, to the Chinese border, and would have a capacity of about 15 million tonnes per year.

The deal was a milestone in energy cooperation between oil-hungry China and its former Cold War rival Russia, which is only the fifth-largest supplier of crude oil to the Chinese market despite the two countries' proximity.

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