Kazakh FM had bilateral meetings on regional coop strengthening in New York

As the MFA's press service reports, the Minister met with his counterparts from the member countries of the Cooperation Council of Turkic-Speaking States (CCTS). The ministers discussed certain areas of implementation of the agreements reached by the heads of the CCTS state at Astana Summit on September 11, 2015. Foreign Ministers of Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Turkey debated further steps on strengthening and development of cooperation within this organization including information, tourism and investment sectors. A high-level meeting on rehabilitation of Afghanistan and regional cooperation arranged by Afghanistan, the U.S. and China brought together the foreign ministers of more than 20 countries and the European Union. Delivering a speech at the event, E.Idrissov outlined Kazakhstan's main approaches to the international efforts on peaceful rehabilitation of Afghanistan having noted that Kazakhstan had consistently adopted measures both at the bilateral level and by implementing the education program on training 1,000 Afghan students in Kazakh universities. The Minister's report aroused great interest among the meeting participants. The Kazakh FM highlighted that the Afghan rehabilitation is of paramount importance for security and stability in the entire Central Asian region and stressed the necessity of coordinated approaches to the international players taking into consideration common interests and prevention of revival of geopolitical games around Afghanistan. Following the meeting the participating countries reaffirmed their adherence to provide systematically further assistance to this country. A ministerial meeting in Dialogue ‘Central Asia-U.S.' format chaired by the U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry was notable for substantive discussion. In the course of the meeting E.Idrissov noted the significance of this new dialogue format and touched upon several issues for regional interaction. The event allowed to hold a multilateral discussion of the issues representing mutual interest both for Kazakhstan and its neighbors in the region as well as for the United States including the issues related to the development of transit-transport potential and increasing the level of its integratedness into global economic ties. A roundtable meeting on "Strengthening Cooperation in South-South Format under the UN Action Program in post-2015 development" organized by the People's Republic of China and chaired by Chinese President Xi Jinping with the participation of the presidents of developing economies let the Kazakh ministerial delegation present their vision of the state and prospects of cooperation among the developing countries. Especially, the participants noted the assistance rendered by Kazakhstan to Afghanistan, African and Latin American countries in development and joint implementation of the UN Development Program and Innovative Partnership Program aimed at assisting the governments, research institutions and business communities of the developing countries, primarily, in Africa, to raise the quality of training young experts for healthcare, energy and agriculture sectors. The meeting of the foreign affairs ministers of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) member states under the chairmanship of the Russian FM Sergey Lavrov allowed to discuss the issues of interaction and discuss certain steps of implementation of the CSTO presidential commissions. On the same day Idrissov had bilateral meetings with his colleagues from Bhutan and Sierra Leone. The parties focused on the prospects of development of the bilateral cooperation and topical issues of the international agenda.