ASTANA, Kazakhstan, Oct. 3 (UPI) -- Kazakhstan will move forward with energy cooperation in the Caucasus despite simmering tensions in the region from the South Ossetian conflict, leaders say.
Kazakhstan is a key oil exporter through Azerbaijan with plans to direct oil from the Kashagan oil field in the northern sections of the Caspian Sea through the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline by 2012.
An August conflict between Russia and Georgia and issues in Turkey disrupted the flow of oil through BTC, which carries about 1 percent of the world's oil.
"It is necessary to eliminate the conflict's consequences. We have good plans. We trade oil through the Caucasus. Any conflict should end in a peace," said Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev.
The European Union moved to send an observer mission to the region to broker a remedy to the conflict, and Nazarbayev said a resolution is of special concern to Astana, Trend Capital News reported Friday.
"For us it assumes both political and economical meaning," he said.
Though major conflict in the region has ended, South Ossetian officials reported Friday a car bomb in the region killed at least six.
