NEWS

In Kabul, FM Saudabayev Says Kazakhstan Wants to Help Bring Peace to Afghanistan

Kazakhstan’s Secretary of State and Minister of Foreign Affairs Kanat Saudabayev is visiting Afghanistan today seeking to advance bilateral relations with its southern regional neighbour and discuss possibilities for greater OSCE role in efforts to bring peace to that country. This year Kazakhstan chairs the OSCE and seeks to strengthen the organization’s assistance efforts for Afghanistan.

In Kabul, Saudabayev met Foreign Minister Zalmai Rasul. Following a meeting, the two foreign ministers signed an inter-governmental agreement on cooperation in fighting drug trafficking.

Later in the day, Saudabayev is scheduled to meet President Hamid Karzai as well as EU special representative in Afghanistan Vygaudas Ushackas.

Saudabayev earlier visited Kabul in November 2009, when he signed a bilateral agreement on cooperation in the sphere of education. Under that agreement, conceived by Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev and Afghan President Hamid Karzai, Kazakhstan has agreed to allocate 50 million dollars to educate 1,000 Afghans at its universities during the next several years, starting in 2010. Kazakhstan has so far provided some four million dollars in humanitarian assistance for the construction of roads, a school and a hospital. It has also shipped 3,000 tons of grain a few years ago, and just this spring shipped 6,000 tons of rice to the Afghans.

Since January 1, when Kazakhstan has assumed the chairmanship of the OSCE, Astana has been pushing for an OSCE summit this year. Kazakh diplomats believe the stabilization of Afghanistan could be one of the main subjects on the summit’s agenda. These days, diplomats in Vienna from 56 member nations are working on a possible draft agenda for the summit.

Date of issue: 2010-05-17