New Baikonur agreement could replace basic lease agreement - Kazakh deputy PM
ASTANA. Feb 18 (Interfax) - The universal agreement on the Baikonur space complex, which is being drafted by Russian-Kazakh experts, will solve all issues on the joint use of the complex, Kazakh Deputy Prime Minister Kairat Kelimbetov, who co-chairs the intergovernmental committee on the Baikonur complex, said.
"I've difficulties saying this now, because foreign ministries and lawyers of our two countries are to settle this issue. However, I think that the conclusion of a new agreement, which could've united the existing legislative basis and new directions of our cooperation of the Baikonur complex, would be timely," Kelimbetov told Interfax when asked whether new Baikonur agreement would replace the basic Baikonur agreement with Russia on the Baikonur lease of 1994.
Kelimbetov said that Kazakhstan's National Space Agency, Kazcosmos, and Russia's Federal Space Agency, Roscosmos, were to submit the universal agreement on the joint use of the Baikonur to the presidents of Kazakhstan and Russia by late October 2013.
"It might have been possible to spell out in great detail all issues" on the Baikonur use, Kelimbetov said. "Our presidents have set this task at a recent meeting in Moscow," he said.
Kelimbetov said that the first session of the Kazakh-Russian intergovernmental committee on the Baikonur was scheduled for March.
"We have agreed that it is necessary to work out stages to discuss all of the Baikonur issues. As you know, the intergovernmental committee, headed by the Russian First Deputy Prime Minister and Kazakh Deputy Prime Minister, resumed its work. I think that this is a high enough level to solve the intergovernmental issues that have built up," Kelimbetov said.
Kelimbetov said that by late May 2013 "the sides will draft a road-map showing which legislative acts we have to change."
The town of Baikonur and Baikonur space center form the Baikonur complex, which Russia has leased from Kazakhstan until 2050. The annual rent is $115 million. The operation of the complex costs Russia approximately 5 billion rubles a year.
The town of Baikonur is an administrative unit of Kazakhstan functioning under the lease terms.