Turkmenistan, Ashgabat, April 20 / Trend H. Hasanov /
A regular meeting of Turkmenstan-Kazakhstan intergovernmental commission on economic, scientific and technical, and cultural cooperation is scheduled to be held in Ashgabat in the nearest future, the Government of Turkmenistan reported on Saturday.
The agenda of the meeting contains issues concerning the implementation of existing intergovernmental agreements, as well as the priority directions of the further development of the partnership between the neighboring countries.
On the eve, at a government meeting the President of Turkmenistan Gurbanguly Berdymuhamedov stressed the importance of intensification of mutually beneficial cooperation between Turkmenistan and the other countries of the region, improvement of the bilateral relations with Kazakhstan to the level meeting the modern realities and opportunities," TV of Turkmenistan reported on Saturday.
Experts note that the two countries are actively cooperating for entering foreign markets. Kazakhstan wants to deliver its oil in the southern direction to the Persian Gulf, and Turkmenistan wants to sell its gas to the north, to Russia, Ukraine and Europe, as well as to China.
Commissioning the Turkmenistan - Uzbekistan - Kazakhstan - China gas pipeline in December 2009 was a significant event in this area. The gas pipeline allows, on the one hand, to provide southern regions of Kazakhstan with gas, and on the other hand, to export Turkmen gas to China.
The two neighbouring countries are also implementing together with Iran a project on construction of Uzen-Gyzylgaya-Bereket-Etrek-Gorgan railway destined to become an important component of the international transport North-South corridor.
The project is being implemented on the basis of an intergovernmental agreement signed between Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Iran in 2007.
The project will give the European and Asian countries an access to Central Asia and the Persian Gulf. A similar opportunity will appear for the transit of goods from the countries of South and South-East Asia, the Indian Ocean to the Northern and Eastern Europe through Iran, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan and Russia.
Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan have signed more than 60 interstate and intergovernmental agreements covering the various areas of cooperation, including the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation, the agreement on trade-economic, scientific-technical and cultural cooperation until 2020.