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Putin meets with Kazakh premier, discusses Caspian gas pipeline

Other News Materials 1 June 2007 18:05 (UTC +04:00)

( Itar-Tass ) - Russian President Vladimir Putin met with Kazakh Prime Minister Karim Masimov here on Friday. The Kazakh official arrived in Russia on his first official visit to this country on Thursday.

On Friday morning, Masinov met with his Russian counterpart Mikhail Fradkov.

Masimov is accompanied by the Kazakh ministers of finance, energy and mineral resources, industry and trade, education and science, and transport and communications, as well as head of Kazakhstan's leading gas concern Kazmunaigaz.

"Obviously, the parties will have a discussion, within the context of the implementation of the declaration on building the Caspian gas pipeline, signed by the presidents of Russia, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan in the town of Turkmenbashi on May 12," a Kazakh government source told Itar-Tass on Thursday.

The heads of states ordered the governments of their countries to sign the cooperation agreement on building the Caspian pipeline by September 1.

Serious changes have taken place between Russia and Kazakhstan in the gas sphere. The companies Gazprom and Kazmunaigaz have signed an agreement that will be a basis for long-term projects, Fradkov said at a meeting with Masimov on Friday.

Masimov said the sides had begun discussing documents on the construction of a Caspian gas pipeline.

"We are satisfied that an agreement was signed on gas supplies from the Karachaganak deposit in Kazakhstan to the Orenburg gas plant in Russia," he said.

The Russian premier stressed that during the Friday talks, the parties discussed cooperation between Russia and Kazakhstan in the sphere of high technologies, military and technical cooperation, and peaceful use of nuclear energy and space exploration. "In the near future, these fields will determine the quality of our relations," Fradkov said.

For his part, Kazakh Prime Minister Karim Masimov said that the Kazakh side is satisfied with the way of development of trade and economic cooperation between Kazakhstan and Russia. "In the first quarter of 2007, trade turnover (between the countries) grew by 45 percent and amounted to four billion dollars," he specified. Masimov noted the fact that Russia and Kazakhstan are successfully cooperating in the joint use of the cosmodrome Baikonur and the implementation of such important projects for Kazakhstan as the development of Kassat and Kassat-2 satellites, as well as the Baiterek complexes.

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