The Senate (upper house) of Kazakhstan's parliament on Thursday ratified a military cooperation treaty with Russia. The session is being broadcast on the legislative body's website.
The document was signed in Nur-Sultan on October 16, 2020. With its adoption, the current agreement between Kazakhstan and Russia on military cooperation of March 28, 1994, will lose force.
"The purpose of the treaty is to implement and develop military cooperation between Kazakhstan and Russia in such areas as joint planning of the use of troops (forces) in the interests of national security and countering challenges and threats to regional security, operational and combat training, military education and science, peacekeeping activities and others," the Senate committee on international relations, defense and security said in its conclusion.
Implementation of the treaty is to be carried out in accordance with the three-year Strategic Military Partnership Program, which includes goals and tasks of military cooperation, areas of military cooperation, the form of their implementation and deadlines. To expand and further deepen the military cooperation, there will be used the mechanism of coordination of the defense policy of the parties in the form of consultations under the supervision of the deputy heads of the defense ministries of the two countries who are responsible for the international military cooperation.
Protocol on the Common Electric Energy Market of the EEU
The Senate of Kazakhstan also ratified the protocol on amendments to the Treaty on the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) with regard to the formation of a common electric energy market (CEM) of the union.
The protocol was signed in Nur-Sultan on May 29, 2019. Its goal is to create the EEU CEM by integrating the national electricity markets of Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Russia while balancing the economic interests of electricity producers and consumers, as well as other subjects of the CEM.
"The protocol was adopted in order to enhance the energy security of [EEU] member states, form a legal space in the EEU that allows ensuring fair competition, create conditions for increasing the efficiency and competitiveness of member states' economies in the electricity sector, further strengthen economic mutually beneficial and equal cooperation," the Senate committee on economic policy, innovative development and entrepreneurship said in its conclusion.
The document regulates the order of regulation and control of activities of natural monopolies in the electricity sector on the common electric energy market of the EEU and other organizations authorized to carry out the interstate transmission of electric energy. Provisions on the implementation of interstate transmission of electric power are established.
Participants of the common electric energy market of the EEU will be legal entities selling and buying electric power and being subjects of the internal wholesale electric power markets, legal entities buying electric power from the neighboring state being a part of the EEU through interstate power lines, as well as legal entities authorized to regulate hourly deviations of actual electric power surplus-flows from the planned values.
After ratification by the Senate, the documents will go to the president of Kazakhstan for signature.
GSV "Russia - Islamic World"
Photo: Federation Council
Based on materials from TASS