Kazakhstan opposes the establishment of a gas union between Russia and Uzbekistan

The creation of the “gas union” proposed by Russia depends on the conditions offered to Kazakhstan.  However, there is no need to create a gas union.  Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Kazakhstan Almas Aidarov gave information about this while commenting on the possibility of establishing a “gas union”.

“Eurasian integration is intergovernmental integration formalized by intergovernmental and interstate agreements.  The creation of the gas union was a proposal from the Russian side and it has not yet been formalized, we have not yet received any details or proposals from Russia on how it will be implemented.  For now, this is the idea of unifying some processes of gas trade,” said Almas Aidarov after the plenary session of the parliament.

According to him, everything will depend on the conditions offered to Kazakhstan.

“For the time being, there is no need to create a separate structure, organization or interstate alliance on the gas issue.  It was just an idea for settlement, gas supply and prices.  “All countries have a gas shortage, that’s why the Russian side came up with such a proposal,” Aidarov explained.

As you know, on 28 November of this year, a meeting between the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin and Kasim-Jomart Tokayev was held in the Kremlin.  At the end of the negotiations, the President of Kazakhstan informed that Putin offered Tokayev the chance to create an alliance between Russia, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.  Later, it became known that Putin told Tokayev about the plans to establish a gas alliance of the three countries, and the President of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev expressed his intention to revisit this issue.

On 8 December, the Minister of Energy of Uzbekistan Zhorabek Mirzamahmudov said that the cooperation of Uzbekistan with other countries in the field of energy is related to domestic consumption demand.

“On the basis of national interests, negotiations are being conducted on cooperation on the basis of trade and commercial agreements, not by handing over our energy networks to someone else,” the minister said.

Soon after that, the press secretary of the President of Russia Dmitry Peskov made a statement and said that no one is setting political conditions for the creation of a gas union, and that this is not the case in the context of the idea of forming a union.