Kazakhstan wants U.S. to be present in Central Asia - President

During the meeting at the White House, Nursultan Nazarbayev and Donald Trump mainly focused on the ways to strengthen and enhance Kazakhstan-U.S. strategic partnership on regional security issues and economic cooperation.

While making his remarks during the joint press conference after the meeting, President Nazarbayev pointed out that after the very first days of 9/11 Kazakhstan steadfastly supported fight of the United States against terrorism. "And now we continue to collaborate closely in Afghanistan. While the American troops are in Afghanistan, I think it's the mission of the whole world to make ensure that Afghanistan is stabilized. And it is also a mission for us as a neighboring country of Afghanistan to see that peace prevails in Afghanistan," he said.



In his remarks the President of Kazakhstan also noted that In Washington he is representing Kazakhstan, the country that used to be a part of the Soviet Union as well as Central Asia in the format of five Central Asian countries.

"Recently, Central Asia has become the focus of big global players because we are bordering Russia on the one side and on the other side we have China, to the south we have the Islamic world. But, we want also the United States to be present there in the format of Central Asia countries +1. We would appreciate this format of collaboration," Nazarbayev told his U.S. counterpart.



The Kazakh leader added that so far Kazakhstan has provided some humanitarian and technical support to Afghanistan to the tune of $75 million. Kazakhstan's Government also spent $50 million training Afghanis in Kazakhstan to some civilian professions.