"There was a decision made to lift the ban on launches of all rocket types, except the Proton," said government spokeswoman Farida Digmagambetova.

The latest ban, the second this year, came after a Proton rocket crashed 25 kilometers (15 miles) northeast of the village of Atasu in the northern Karaganda region of the ex-Soviet republic.

The decision to ease the newly-imposed restrictions was made at a joint commission meeting headed by Russian Deputy Prime Minister Ilya Klebanov and his Kazakh counterpart Alexander Pavlov late Thursday.

Moscow in return has agreed to pay Astana 400,000 dollars for economic and ecological damage at the crash site and for investigating the accident, the Interfax news agency quoted a government source as saying.

Pavlov said Kazakhstan could make a decision on whether to also lift the ban on Proton rockets later Friday.

The decision paves the way for the scheduled take-off on Monday of a Russian Soyuz rocket, which will launch a GlobalStar telecommunications satellite, a spokesman at the Kazakh space agency said.

Russia and Kazakhstan have also agreed on a cooperation procedure in case of future accidents, while Russia has further signed an agreement on the use of natural resources at Kazakhstan's Baikonur launching pad, Pavlov said.

Last month's crash was strikingly similar to an accident that strained relations between Moscow and Astana on July 5, when Kazakhstan banned rocket launches from the launch pad it inherited after the Soviet Union's collapse in 1991.

International Launch Service (Proton)

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