Massimov met with US Deputy Secretary of Energy

Kazakhstan Prime-Minister Karim Massimov met with the United States Deputy Secretary of Energy Daniel Poneman, Tengrinews.kz reports citing Massimov's Twitter. “Met with D.Poneman, US Deputy Secretary of Energy,” PM tweeted. “The sides discussed energy security, cooperation within the framework of the joint Kazakh-American Commission on Energy Partnership as well as development of bilateral relations in the oil and gas sector, energy efficiency and alternative energy sources development,” Massimov wrote in his Facebook. Daniel Poneman arrived in Astana for participation in the Nuclear-free World Forum. In 1990s he worked in the National Security Council in the White House, being responsible for nuclear weapons nonproliferation program. As Poneman said during his visit to Astana in 2009, back then “many people saw the potential beginning of the new and dangerous era after collapse of the Soviet Union, as the world was facing emergence of 4 nuclear countries: Russia, Kazakhsta, Belarus and Ukraine. If that happened, there could have been a new wave of spread of nuclear arms and weapons of mass destruction, that would have brought new indescribable threats, destabilization and a huge risk,” he said at the Kazakhstan International Exhibition and Conference Oil and Gas. Poneman also said 2 years ago that destabilization did not happen also thanks to the long-sighted policy of Nursultan Nazarbayev. “When the history is written, it will be noted that President Nazarbayev showed long-sightedness and a talent of a politician by taking a firm decision to give up nuclear weapons, that Kazakhstan inherited after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Not only he moved the weapons outside the territory of Kazakhstan, but also made Kazakhstan a participant of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. And Kazakhstan still keeps playing a leading role in nonproliferation of nuclear weapons,” he said. Nuclear-free World Forum opens in Astana on October 12. It will be timed to the 20th anniversary of the closure of Semipalatinsk testing site. Over 200 prominent figures are invited to participant in the forum. They include politicians, representatives of parliaments and governments of different countries, academic elites, experts, international and local NGOs. On October 13 the participants will visit Semipalatinsk nuclear testing site and will take part in a meeting on the 20th anniversary of the site's closure in Kurchatov.