Kazakh leader ratifies protocol amending lease deal on Baikonur launch pad

NUR-SULTAN, Dec 26, 2019, TASS. On Wednesday, Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev signed a law ratifying the protocol on amendments to the lease agreement for the Baikonur Cosmodrome, signed by the governments of Kazakhstan and Russia on December 10, 1994, the press service of the Kazakh president reported, according to the TASS.

The protocol was signed on November 9, 2017 within the framework of the 14th Russia-Kazakhstan Interregional Cooperation Forum with the participation of the two presidents. It was ratified by the lower house of the Kazakh parliament on November 6, and then, on December 12, by Kazakhstan’s Senate (upper house).

According to the Senate’s Committee for Agrarian Matters, Natural Resources Management, the protocol provides for the return of 11,600 hectares of land by the Russian Federation leased from Kazakhstan.

These are four land plots in the Kyzylorda Region. They will be re-distributed for the construction of an international transit corridor connecting Western Europe and Western China, a railway connecting Almaty and Moscow, a section of the Beineu-Shymkent gas pipeline and for the development of Toretam settlement in the Kyzylorda Region.