N. Nazarbayev: Citizenship is important, not ethnicity

"I keep saying that Kazakhstan has to be comfortable for living for each citizen. I also insist that the citizenship is more important than ethnicity. The citizenship means that all citizens of one country live according to the laws and the Constitution of the country. Even when we preserve our national peculiarities, history, culture, languages we are one nation being citizens of one country. I shed a tear last year when people were standing in lines to vote for their president at the presidential election where 85 percent of the population took part and 92 percent voted for the president. It gave me a feeling that we had the nation, all ethnic groups united. It was exactly what we were working for, it is what we need to preserve. We need to continue to work hard in this direction," N. Nazarbayev said.

The President also expressed his opinion regarding nationalism saying that nationalists are people who did not succeed in any sphere and had nothing left but to speak from the supremacy of one nation over the other.

The Head of State also reminded that the ethnicities merge all over the modern world.

"I want our next generations to belong to the modern world, and it can be started here, in the country. It depends on how we raise them and educate," the President stressed.