Kazakh Vice FM visited Washington within Kazakh-US Annual Bilateral Consultations
ANA. September 9. KAZINFORM On September 7, Deputy Foreign Minister of Kazakhstan Kairat Umarov visited Washington to hold interim review of the Annual Bilateral Consultations between Kazakhstan and the U.S.; Kazinform refers to the Kazakh Embassy in the U.S.
The mechanism of annual consultations was launched in March 2010 to institutionalize Kazakh-American dialogue and ensure consistency of joint work on deepening strategic partnership between the two states.
K. Umarov together with US Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Robert Blake summued up the results of joint work for the past half-year. The parties discussed the status and prospects of bilateral relations on the following directions: mass destruction weapon nonproliferation, Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan, regional security, Kazakhstan's OSCE chairmanship, democracy and human rights, energy, military, socio-economic and scientific-technical cooperation. They confirmed readiness to hold the second sitting of the Annual Bilateral Consultations in Astana next year.
'Kazakhstan is the only Central Asian state, with which the United States has such a vast and rich agenda of bilateral cooperation. The mechanism of bilateral consultations shows efficiency and promotes further expansion and improvement of Kazakh-American dialogue", Mr. Blake said.