By IRNA-Itar-Tass
Moscow : The presidents of Russia and Kazakhstan, Vladimir Putin and Nursultan Nazarbayev, will hold talks in the Russian capital on Thursday. “The meeting will continue an intensive political dialogue which distinguishes the Russia-Kazakhstan relations ,” a representative of the Kremlin administration told Itar-Tass.
Presidents Putin and Nazarbayev meet regularly, they set the tone for inter-state cooperation. Their official relations have developed into friendship. Putin and Nazarbayev have met nine times this year.
The good relations between the two leaders make Russia and Kazakhstan the two most actively cooperating states in the CIS.
Putin had ordered the Russian government to prepare for Nazarbayev’s visit to Moscow long ago. “The two presidents will discuss urgent issues of strategic partnership and integration cooperation at their meeting, ” the Kremlin source went on to say.
The agenda of the talks will include more than a dozen issues related to bilateral strategic projects and cooperation in the world arena.
“The sides will discuss huge investment projects in transport, the fuel and energy sector, civil atomic energy and electric energy,” the source went on to say.
“Special attention will be paid to cooperation in high technologies, peaceful use of outer space and military-technical cooperation,” the Kremlin representative went on to say.
Presidents Putin and Nazarbayev will be present at the signing of a trilateral agreement between Russia, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan on the construction of the Caspian Gas Pipeline. The agreement will provide for building gas pipeline networks along the eastern coastline of the Caspian Sea.
Kazakhstan is one of Russia’s major foreign trade partners. “The reciprocal trade turnover will reach $16 billion by the year’s end,” the Kremlin source said. He added that Russia and Kazakhstan were implementing a Plan of joint actions for 2007-2008. “The sides will get down to implementing the targets set by programs of economic and border cooperation for 2008-2011.
Russian oil companies Rosneft and LUKOIL and the Russian gas giant Gazprom cooperate with KazMunaiGas, the national oil company of Kazakhstan, within the framework of the Caspian pipeline consortium.
There are more than 3,000 joint ventures with Russian capital in Kazakhstan and their number keeps rising every year.
“In November, the RusAl Company and the Kazakh holdings Samruk signed an agreement to create a joint venture. These companies are going to implement a project for the construction of a large energy and metallurgical complex,” the Kremlin source went on to say.
Next on the row are bilateral inter-governmental agreements on cooperation in the exploration and use of outer space for peaceful purposes and on the use and development of the Russian navigation system GLONASS.
The foreign policy agenda includes OSCE-related issues in the context of the Madrid meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers of the OSCE member countries and Kazakhstan’s upcoming OSCE chairmanship in 2010.