BERLIN, Sept 28 (Reuters) – Kazakhstan is ready to increase oil supplies to Germany, Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev said on Thursday after talks with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Berlin.
Kazakhstan has shipped 500,000 metric tons of crude this year to Germany’s Schwedt refinery through Russia’s Drushpa pipeline, Tokayev said, with sales beginning after Berlin decided to stop buying Russian oil.
„At the request of our German friends, I confirmed our country’s readiness to increase oil supplies and replace them in the long term,” Togayev told a news conference.
He did not say how much such exports would increase.
„Kazakhstan is an important partner for us to expand our supply channels, for example making us independent from crude oil imports and Russian energy supplies,” Scholz said at the same conference.
„We see Kazakhstan as a partner when it comes to critical raw materials to shape the energy transition. And we agree that the necessary transport routes must be rapidly expanded.”
Tokayev also said Germany should not fear that the former Soviet state of Kazakhstan in Central Asia, which shares a long border with Russia and is home to a large ethnic Russian minority, would help Moscow avoid Western sanctions imposed by its aggression on Ukraine.
Western observers have noted increased trade volumes between Central Asia and Russia, which may indicate that some countries in the region are importing and reselling goods to Russia that they cannot afford from Europe.
Kazakhstan continues to call for talks between Russia and Ukraine to end the war, now in its 20th month, and Moscow is not concerned about threats to its own territorial integrity, Tokayev said.
„The time has come for rational, I would say intelligent diplomacy,” Tokayev said. „It is time to end mutual accusations and start talking business to find a basis for peace talks acceptable to both sides.”
Report by Miranda Murray; Written by Olsas Aizov; Editing by John Harvey
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