Kazakhstan peacemakers ready to take part in UN operations

Kazakhstan’s peacemakers have been declared operationally compliant and ready for participation in UN operations, Tengrinews reports citing the press-service of Kazakhstan Defense Ministry. The statement was made at the NATO conference on the Operational Capability Concept program in Almaty in October. The event was attended by representatives of Austria, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Great Britain, Georgia, Germany, Jordan, Macedonia, Moldova, Mauritania, Norway, Serbia, Turkey, Ukraine, Finland, Sweden and Montenegro. The participants exchanged their experience in evaluation of peacemaking divisions and discussed military cooperation in peacemaking. NATO experts started evaluating Kazbat peacemaking battalion at the Steppe Eagle-2013 drills in August 2013. Back then the militarymen practiced missions in urban areas: they had to patrol an area, repulse an attack on the patrol and apprehend suspicious persons. Kazakhstan peacemakers will not participate in missions causing mixed public reaction , the Defense Ministry declared in March 2013. According to the Ministry, the UN is currently performing 15 peacemaking operations. “Kazakhstan Defense Ministry has initiated some developments in this direction. They were coordinated with the Foreign Ministry and submitted to Kazakhstan Government and then to the Presidential Administration for approval. It is too early to talk about any particular missions before the President makes the decision and the Parliament votes on the suggestions,” the Ministry said.