Kazakhstan to attend EU energy summit in Prague

Energy rich Kazakhstan is to take part in the EU’s ‘Southern Corridor Summit’ on power supplies which will be held in Prague next month, it was announced on Monday evening. The announcement was made by Kazakh Foreign Minister Marat Tazhin during a visit to Czech counterpart Karel Schwarzenberg. One of the Czech Republic’s priorities at the helm of the EU has been diversifying the bloc’s sources of energy. Prague has been pushing to lower the EU’s dependence on gas supplies from Russia. On a visit to Kazakhstan in February, outgoing Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolánek said that the EU was interested in purchasing direct deliveries of oil and gas from central Asia. The Prague energy summit focusing on that will be held on May 8.