ISLAMABAD, Sept 22: Pakistan and Kazakhstan are currently engaged in a dialogue on military cooperation and a Memorandum of Understanding in this regard will be signed by the two sides this year.
This was disclosed by ambassador of Kazakhstan Mr Beibit Issabayev here on Thursday while answering questions at a special news briefing on the forthcoming presidential elections in his country.
“At present there is no ongoing defence cooperation between Kazakhstan and Pakistan but talks between the two sides are continuing in military and technical fields, ambassador Issabayev said in reply to a question, adding that the two countries would sign an MoU on cooperation in both these areas later this year.
Ambassador Issabayev was confident that Kazakhstan would support Pakistan’s candidature for full membership of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) if it were to formally apply for it. He was quick to point out that Kazakhstan was the first country to support Pakistan for attaining the observer status in the SCO. He, however, emphasized that the decision on granting full membership to any country rested entirely with the heads of governments of the member states.
He hoped that Pakistan as an observer of the SCO would contribute immensely in the maintenance of security in the region.
The Kazakh ambassador regretted the fact that the two-way trade volume between Pakistan and Kazakhstan stood at only US $10 million annually and hoped it would soon increase. The absence of direct road link was identified by him as the main reason for the low level of trade volume. Other factors were instability in Afghanistan and suspension of flights between the two countries for almost a year.
He also pointed out that the quadrilateral agreement on road transport for transit trade signed between Kazakhstan, Pakistan, China and Kyrgyzstan was not fully operational.
The agreement was signed in 1995 but became effective in May 2004.
Replying to a question ambassador Issabayev said the Foreign Office had not yet confirmed involvement of Kazakh nationals in terrorist activities in the tribal areas, as reported in a section of the Pakistani press.
He pointed out that his embassy had formally approached the Foreign Office in this regard about two months back and had still not received any response on this question.
“We sent a note to the Foreign Office two months back and it has not been able to confirm that citizens of Kazakhstan have been involved in terrorist activities,” the ambassador told a questioner.
He said two weeks back when he raised the issue with Foreign Ministry’s Additional Secretary for ECO region Mr Khurshid Anwar, he was told by him that the embassy’s note had been forwarded to the Interior Ministry and a response was awaited from that end.
