Kazakhstan to help Ukraine remove unjustified barriers to its cooperation with Customs Union

Kazakhstan is ready to cooperate with Ukraine to remove the “unjustified barriers” to its cooperation with the Customs Union member states, Kazakhstan’s PM Karim Massimov stated at the talks with PM Nikolai Azarov of Ukraine on Thursday. Mr. Azarov is on an official visit to Kazakhstan, Novosti Kazakhstan reports. “We have agreed that Kazakhstan in its capacity of a Customs Union member state will be interacting with Ukraine to remove the unjustified barriers”, PM Massimov said following the talks. Kazakhstan’s PM elaborated that they had agreed to “initiate respective discussion with PM Vladimir Putin of Russia (…) so that the three nations could benefit”. Notably, according to him, Ukraine “has a substantial experience in the nuclear power realm (…) and the three nations [that is Kazakhstan, Ukraine and Russia] could gain more tangible results together”. PM Massimov expressed hope that “Ukraine will be a conduit to Europe for Kazakhstan”. “And we offer Kazakhstan as an Asian country to open gates for Ukraine into this part of the globe”. “We would want Ukrainian enterprises to be involved in JVs in Kazakhstan”, he said.