Kazakhstan said on Tuesday the European Union has approved the Central Asian country exporting coal through Russian ports, despite sanctions on Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine.
Kazakhstan, the EU’s largest Central Asian trading partner, is rich in natural resources, but is forced to export the vast majority of its production through Russia because it’s landlocked.
After Brussels’ latest sanctions package on Russia, “the European side introduced amendments providing for an exception to the ban on transactions with certain Russian ports for the transit of Kazakh coal,” Kazakhstan’s trade ministry said in a statement.
In March, the European Commission, the EU’s executive branch, had already suggested that Kazakhstan, the fifth largest supplier of coal to the EU, could benefit from an exception.
Coal from Kazakhstan made up 6.5 percent of EU’s imports of the commodity in the first quarter of this year, according to the European Commission.
According to the Kazakh authorities, the waiver is valid if the coal comes exclusively from Kazakhstan, is not owned by an entity under sanctions and if Russian ports are only used for transit.
Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and the subsequent ban on imports of Russian natural resources into the EU, the bloc has sought to strengthen its ties with Kazakhstan, especially in the energy sector.
But this former Soviet republic remains a close ally of Russia, with which it shares some 7,500 kilometres (4,700 miles) of border.
Western countries accuse it of flouting sanctions by allowing sanctioned goods to flow through the lengthy border, a claim Astana denies.