Nazarbaev Continues Visit To Ukraine

Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbaev is continuing a visit to Ukraine today, intended to help boost economic ties between the two countries.

At a joint news conference, Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko said he and Nazarbaev were forging ahead with plans to ship Kazakh oil to Ukraine via an extension to an existing pipeline.

"We agreed to set up a working group to implement a transport corridor that would incorporate the Odesa-Brody-Gdansk oil pipeline -- a project that several countries have been working on for many years, and we now find it in a very high phase of readiness for political decisions to be made at the highest level," Yushchenko said.

Ukrainian Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych last week proposed creating a consortium between Ukraine, Russia, Azerbaijan, and Kazakhstan that would transport oil to Europe across Ukrainian territory.

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