SEOUL, March 29 (UPI) -- South Korea and Uzbekistan signed an agreement Wednesday in Seoul to jointly explore and develop oil and gas fields in the energy-rich Central Asian nation.
The deal was signed on the second day of a three-day visit to Seoul by Uzbekistan President Islam Karimov, following President Roh Moo-hyun's visit to Tashkent in May last year.
The Korea National Oil Corp., Korea Gas Corp. and Uzbeknefgaz signed a memorandum of understanding giving the Korean companies exclusive rights to explore and extract from two oil and two gas fields in the former Soviet country, the Korea Herald reported.
The National Oil Corp. will begin preliminary explorations in eastern Uzbekistan along with state-run oil and gas company Uzbeknefgaz, and will decide whether to sign development contracts sometime around December based on the results of the explorations, the report said.
In an hour-long summit, the two presidents agreed to form a strategic partnership for closer cooperation in energy, developing natural resources, protecting democracy and human rights, and working together in international bodies such as the United Nations, the report said.
They also discussed ways of supporting an estimated 200,000 ethnic Koreans in Uzbekistan, the largest Korean population in Central Asia.
