Russia,Kazakhstan sign agreement on joint uranium enrichment centre

Moscow, May 10 (UNI) Russia and Kazakhstan today signed an agreement to set up the first international uranium enrichment centre.

Russia's Federal Atomic Energy Agency director Sergei Kiriyenko and Kazakh Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Baktykozha Ezmukhambetov signed the Inter-Governmental Agreement on setting up the uranium enrichment centre, in Astana, the Kazakh capital, in the presence of Russian President Vladimir Putin and Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev.

"We consider the document the first step in the implementation of our initiative to create a global nuclear energy infrastructure," Interfax news agency quoted Mr Putin as saying at the talks with Nazarbayev in Astana.

Currently, President Putin is on a trip to the Central Asia's energy-rich countries of Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan to lobby for a gas pipeline project going through Russia.

Moscow's initiative to lay a gas pipeline from Turkmenistan along the Kazakh and Russian Caspian coast is opposed by a project of the United States, Europe and Georgia to build a pipeline under the Caspian Sea to deliver gas to southern Europe via Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey.

Mr Nazabayev said Kazakhstan's cooperation with Russia in transporting energy was strategic in nature.

"Kazakhstan is absolutely committed to shipping most of oil, if not all of it, through Russian territory. We have always said this," he said.

Mr Nazarbayev also said Kazakhstan was interested in joining a project to build a pipeline to link Burgas and Alexandroupolis, whose construction must proceed simultaneously with the expansion of the Caspian pipeline consortium.

Mr Putin was scheduled to hold tripartite talks on the gas pipeline project with Nazabayev and Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov.

UNI