Translated material
This is how presidents are friends
Ten meetings worth 10 billion dollars
Vladimir Putin's trip to Kazakhstan on the occasion of the next inauguration of Nursultan Nazarbayev ended yesterday with bilateral negotiations. The press was first allowed to observe part of the negotiations between the delegations of the two countries in large numbers, via live broadcast from the meeting room. And then the journalists were allowed to sign the final documents - there were three in total - and listen to statements by Putin and Nazarbayev. When comparing these formats, the picture looked interesting.Russian-Kazakh relations, according to Nursultan Nazarbayev, are excellent, and are strengthening from year to year, at the rate at which trade turnover between Russia and Kazakhstan is growing. In 2006 it will grow by 30% and amount to about $10 billion. However, both presidents spoke about this. This is generally a favorite topic of CIS leaders when they talk about the successes of economic cooperation. Putin and Nazarbayev also shared their satisfaction that they met 10 times last year alone. This really looks like a record. For example, President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko can only dream of such a frequency of communication with the Russian president. By the way, at the last moment he refused to come to Astana for the celebrations.
Such close contact with Moscow, according to Nazarbayev, shows the whole world “the highest level of Russian-Kazakh relations.” And to confirm this, he will make his first foreign visit after the inauguration to St. Petersburg, where the EurAsEC summit will take place on January 25. The Kazakh president, who does not miss any opportunity to emphasize his role as the main integrator in the post-Soviet space, announced that already in March it is planned to sign a package of 38 documents as part of the creation of a customs union in the Common Economic Space (SES). (It is not clear what relation Ukraine will have to this, especially since parliamentary elections will be held there in March. However, Viktor Yushchenko yesterday promised in March to determine a list of documents on the SES that Ukraine would be ready to sign. According to him, out of 29 priority draft agreements, Kyiv is ready to sign and “accept for execution” 16).
Nursultan Nazarbayev pleased those present with the message that this year in his country has been declared the year of Pushkin, and in Russia - the year of the “Kazakh Pushkin” - Abai. Moreover, monuments to the beloved poets of friendly nations will appear in St. Petersburg and Almaty. In order to strengthen humanitarian cooperation between Russia and Kazakhstan in the new century, it was decided to establish a forum for the intelligentsia of the two countries, the idea of which belongs to Nursultan Nazarbayev himself. The Russian President recalled these and other merits with special gratitude in Astana. The owner of "Ak Orda" (Nazarbayev's presidential palace) did not remain in debt. He also thanked Putin for the fact that his “visit raised the status of the inauguration” of the President of Kazakhstan. And Nazarbayev “will never forget the fraternal support of Russia and the Russian media, which they provided during the presidential elections in Kazakhstan.” Nursultan Nazarbayev was quite delicate and did not specify who personally received this support.
Well, and finally, what Nazarbayev said was not primarily for journalists. And even then, however, as if in passing. That there are problems with the transit of Kazakh oil and gas, as well as grains through Russian territory. Nazarbayev apparently continued the discussion he had had alone with Putin half an hour earlier, and convinced the Russians that Kazakh wheat is not a competitor to Russian wheat, since only durum wheat is exported from here.
As for the transit of energy resources, since this problem is old, Nazarbayev did not dwell on it. As some members of the Kazakh delegation explained to Vremya Novostey, the point is that Moscow is in no hurry to increase Astana’s quotas for pumping Kazakh oil, which, for example, the state company KazMunayGas would like to load the Lithuanian oil refinery Mazeikiu Nafta with. The Kazakhs received a firm and decisive refusal from the Russian Transneft to transit oil to Lithuania as soon as they expressed their intention to buy a stake in the refinery from the disgraced Yukos. As the head of the Russian Ministry of Industry and Energy, Viktor Khristenko, remarked to Vremya Novostey about this, “well, somehow the Kazakh people will solve this problem.” It is characteristic that among the members of the delegations of both Kazakhstan and Russia there were no representatives of the oil business of the two countries.
There are other problems associated with growing energy competition between Kazakhstan and Russia, which Mr. Nazarbayev did not mention. For example, RAO UES of Russia is not enthusiastic about Kazakhstan’s plans to build a new hydroelectric power station in Ekibastuz together with China. China intends to import the electricity that this GRES will produce from Kazakhstan. Moreover, it is very cheap, since the cost of Ekibastuz coal is one of the lowest in the world.
The formal results of Putin’s visit to Kazakhstan were the signing of three documents. The main one, which the Russian president called “historic”, and Nazarbayev once again expressed special thanks to Putin for it (this time there were a suspiciously large number of such thanks - this happens when they want to cover up some troubles done to a partner) - This is a protocol on the exchange of instruments of ratification to the Treaty on the Russian-Kazakh State Border. The agreement came into force yesterday. And 7 thousand kilometers of this border are now completely and finally delimited. Cooperation agreements were also signed between Vnesheconombank and the Development Bank of Kazakhstan.
According to the third document, the Eurasian Development Bank (EDB) is established with an authorized capital of 1.5 billion dollars, 2/3 of which was contributed by Kazakhstan, and the rest by Russia. The headquarters of the EDB will be located in Almaty, the branch will be in St. Petersburg. The chairman of the board will be Assistant Minister of Finance of Russia Igor Finogenov (formerly the president of NOMOS Bank), who was introduced to Putin and Nazarbayev yesterday and had the honor of being the first to drink a glass of champagne with them on the occasion of the signing of all documents. At the same time, Mr. Finogenov did not leave the presidents for so long that it even began to irritate television and photo journalists, whose lenses he prevented from following the main people of the meeting. But when it turned out that this was the head of the bank, which, according to Nazarbayev, would finance projects within the EurAsEC and attract additional investments to them, they were ready to forgive Mr. Finogenov for his annoyingly close communication with the presidents. Nazarbayev did not hide his pride in the fact that one billion dollars in the EDB came from Kazakhstan. “This, actually Russian-Kazakh bank, takes the Eurasian Union to a completely different level, when we ourselves can issue loans to members of the Eurasian Union, and not look for them somewhere in other countries on the same or better terms,” Nazarbayev said. “One and a half billion dollars in the language of financiers should mean attracting other money tenfold with this money.”
The President of Kazakhstan could talk about other signs of the aggressively successful expansion of Kazakh capital in the CIS, where it clearly began to displace Russian capital. For example, in Georgia, where KazMunaiGaz acquired a 50% stake in Tbilgaz and, ahead of Gazprom, gained access to the Georgian gas distribution network. Tbilisi hoped to interest Gazprom in this option, hoping to receive in return a price lower than $110 per 1,000 cubic meters for Russian gas supplied to Georgia. But Gazprom did not make concessions and got a competitor from Kazakhstan in Georgia. And Kazakh business began to actively take over the resort infrastructure of Adjara, apparently pushing out Russians from there. But Nazarbayev did not tell Putin about all this, apparently assuming that he himself was well aware of this. By the way, it is the successful development of cooperation between the political antipodes in the CIS, the “pink-revolutionary” Tbilisi and the conservative-evolutionary Astana, that explains the attention with which the hosts greeted the inaugural celebrations of Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili. In addition, as Vremya Novostei learned from informed sources, it is the Georgian leadership that is the channel through which Astana retains the resources of confidential communication with Washington. It must be remembered that Nazarbayev’s relationship with the White House cannot be called comfortable for the Kazakh president, in particular in connection with the “Kazakhgate” corruption scandal being investigated by the American court.
Therefore, when Nazarbayev yesterday predicted serious breakthroughs in cooperation within the EurAsEC and CSTO, which are expected this year, Moscow should also be ready to diversify the vectors that guide Kazakhstan in relations with the CIS countries. It is also possible that economic alliances based on interests will connect Kazakhstan with Georgia and Ukraine, which are experiencing common problems, being dependent for various reasons on Russia as a transit territory.