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* Four months to do Kumtor deal
* Stake swap part of deal
(Adds details, background)
By Olga Dzyubenko
BISHKEK, Feb 6 (Reuters) - Kyrgyzstan's parliament on Thursday gave up to four months for the government to finalise a draft deal with Canada's Centerra Gold
Kumtor, hidden in the Tien Shan mountains near the border with China, has long been a source of political tension in the impoverished Central Asian nation, facing calls for nationalisation.
The government has withstood opposition pressure, rejecting any talk of nationalisation or unilateral repeal of financial agreements with Kumtor operator Centerra Gold. But it has sought ways for Kyrgyzstan to reap higher revenues from the mine.
"The parliament gave the government a short period of time - three to four months - for restructuring the project," Kyrgyz Deputy Prime Minister Zhoomart Otorbayev told Reuters after the vote in the parliament.
The draft project, agreed with the Canadian investor, proposes to swap Kyrgyzstan's 32.7 percent stake in Centerra Gold for half of the Kumtor gold mine, Centerra's core asset.
After two days of heated debate, 60 parliamentarians voted for the government to continue work with Centerra on forming a 50-50 Kumtor venture, while 35 voted against.
Kyrgyzstan's negotiations with Centerra are overshadowed by a $300 million ecological damages suit filed by the government against the company.
"Until we have settled the ecological issues, the restructuring will not be completed," Kyrgyz Prime Minister Zhantoro Satybaldiyev said in parliament on Thursday.
When the government presented the current draft deal with Centerra in late December, the company said that at the end of the mine's planned life in 2026, Kyrgyzstan would have the rights to increase its ownership interest in the project to 67 percent for a price equal to fair market value.
The nationalist opposition in the legislature demanded in October the government should seek straightaway a 67 percent stake in the new gold venture with Centerra. President Almazbek Atambayev said later such a task was "obviously unachievable".
Talks to reach the current draft deal took place amid riots in several parts of the volatile, mainly Muslim nation of 5.5 million which lies on a drug trafficking route out of Afghanistan.
Kumtor remains a major hard currency earner for Kyrgyzstan, where per capita gross domestic product (GDP) is just one tenth of that in oil-rich neighbour Kazakhstan.
Kyrgyzstan's GDP expanded by 10.5 percent last year after shrinking by 0.1 percent in 2012, driven by a sharp rise in Kumtor's output. Kumtor ramped up production to 600,402 ounces of gold in 2013 from 315,238 ounces in 2012.
(Writing by Dmitry Solovyov, editing by David Evans and Keiron Henderson)
((dmitry.solovyov@thomsonreuters.com)(+7 727 3300 787 x 705)(Reuters Messaging: dmitry.solovyov.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net))
Keywords: KYRGYZSTAN MINE/