India, Kazakhstan to unveil roadmap for strategic ties

April 16th, 2011 - 1:22 am ICT by IANS  

Manmohan Singh Astana, April 15 (IANS) India and Kazakhstan will take their strategic ties a step further when visiting Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and President Nursultan Nazarbayev meet Saturday to discuss cooperation in the nuclear and hydrocarbon sectors, Kazakh Deputy Foreign Minister Kairat Umarov said Friday.

Umarov, who was Kazakh envoy to India 2004-09, said the two countries “will unveil a roadmap for development of strategic partnership” as both are keen to ramp up their relations.

“The roadmap will spell out how the two countries intend to take their relations in the future,” Umarov told a select group of Indian journalists.

“The visit of the prime minister is important for strengthening strategic cooperation and developing relations.”

Manmohan Singh arrived in this flashy capital of Kazakhstan after a three-day trip to China during which he attended the 3rd BRICS summit and also held bilateral talks with the presidents of Brazil, Russia, China and South Africa.

Umarov said Kazakhstan was interested in developing trade ties with India in “civil nuclear, IT, hydrocarbon, agriculture, cyber security, textiles, petrochemicals and pharmaceuticals sectors”.

“There are lots of sectors where we can complement each other.”

Umarov said the two nations would be signing an agreement under which India’s ONGC Videsh Ltd (OVL) would acquire 25 percent stake in the Satpayev oil block in the Caspian Sea.

He said there were transportation problems in sending oil to India from Kazakhstan but the Caspian assets will enable India to sell oil to the countries of the region and they can buy energy sources from other countries “till the transportation issue is solved”.

He said the proposed Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) pipeline project could be used for supplying hydrocarbons from Kazakhstan to India.

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