Romania to back Kazakhstan to take over OSCE chairmanship

President Traian Basescu said on Thursday Romania will back 'unreservedly' Kazakhstan's bid to take over the OSCE chairmanship. 'I assured President Nursultan Nazarbayev of Romania's unreserved support for the Republic of Kazakhstan to take over the OSCE chairmanship', Basescu said in a joint press statement with the visiting Kazakh counterpart.

'We should see a partner in Kazakhstan and we take this approach without any complex whatsoever related to the fact the Kazakhstan, 20 years ago, was a Soviet republic. We ourselves were a Communist state 17 years ago and now we are in the European Union', Basescu said in answer to a question put by a journalist.

He stressed that the development of the bilateral relations with Kazakhstan is a priority for Romania. 'Our policy, at the same time with regional cooperation, targets the strengthening of the bilateral relations with other states. We wage a policy of strengthening our bilateral relations with Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan. Our priority is to have a very good bilateral relation with these three states', the Romanian president underscored.

Basescu and Nazarbayev also tackled the 'investment developments' that Kazakh company KazMunaiGaz is to make in Romania.

'We also discussed the issue of the Romanian minority in Kazakhstan, there are about 20,000 citizens displaced in the 1950s from the regions where the Romanians lived in Kazakhstan', Basescu said; another matter approached by the two presidents was the technical capacity of the Romanian Black Sea port of Constanta to take over energy goods bound for Europe.

Nazarbayev said Romania is his country's biggest commercial partner and the development of the relations with Romania is a priority for Kazakhstan.

'Among the economic understandings and the development of these relations, the oil and gas sector is a priority goal', the Kazakh leader stressed, adding that earlier this autumn an agreement was signed by which KaiMunaiGaz acquired a 75 percent stake in Romanian oil company Rompetrol.

Nazarbayev said his country is interested in the development of the relations regarding the Black Sea ports, since 'Kazakhstan can go out to Europe' via the Port of Constanta.

'By supplying Europe and Romania our energy resources, we are interested, in exchange, that foreign investors come to our country, who should contribute to achieving an industrial programme for the drilling and processing of energy products', he said, adding Kazakhstan is interested in the development of the Constanta-Trieste project.

The two sides signed two agreements on bilateral economic relations: the Agreement between the Governments of Romania and Kazakhstan on the international road transport of goods and the Cooperation Protocol between the Romanian National Company for the Management of the Constanta Sea Ports and the State Republican Enterprise Aktau International Commercial Sea Port.

ROMPRES