Tuesday, 6 June 2006China will seek deals with central Asian countries that are of mutual benefit to the two sides, and the region should not be turned into a political chessboard, said Zhang Deguang, the secretary general of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which meets in Shanghai next week.
During an interview with the influential state-run political magazine Outlook, which was published on Monday, Zhang said that central Asian countries should become the stage on which countries can cooperate on a friendly basis and seek 'double-win' deals.
China's energy cooperation with Central Asian countries, particularly with Kazakhstan, has developed rapidly in recent years. An oil pipeline connecting Kazakhstan with Alataw on the far western Chinese border went into full operation last month, and KazMunaiGaz, the state-owned Kazakh gas monopoly, also announced recently that it would begin building a natural gas pipeline to China as early as 2009.
Other energy-hungry countries and regions, including the US and the EU, have also targeted resource-rich central Asia as an alternative source of energy to the politically unstable Middle East.
Japan began talks with Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan on Monday, and will, among other things, discuss the feasibility of creating an 'energy channel' that allows Japan to source oil and gas from the region and import it via Afghanistan and the Indian Ocean, a plan that has also been promoted by the US. |
Tuesday, 6 June 2006
UzReport
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