Kazakh statehood is 550 years old: Nazarbayev

President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev said that the country will celebrate the 550th anniversary of Kazakh statehood in 2015, Tengrinews reports citing the press service of the President.
Many regard these remarks of the Kazakhstan president is a response to Vladimir Putin's statement that the Kazakhs had never had their own statehood until Nazarbayev established it.
"He has done a unique thing. He created a state in a territory that had never had a state before. The Kazakhs had no statehood. From this perspective, he is a unique figure both in the post-Soviet space and in Kazakhstan," Putin said on August 29. 
Nazarbayev's announcement rests on the history of Kazakh Khanate, which was established back in the 15th century.
"In 1465 Kerey and Janybek created the first Khanate, and the Kazakh statehood begins its history from that time. It may not have been a state in the modern sense of this word, neither did it occupy the present territory (of Kazakhstan), or enjoyed its fame and prestige in the world. But the same it true for all the other states of that era. What matters is that back then the foundation was laid and we are the successors of the great deeds of our ancestors," Nazarbayev said at a meeting with activists of Astana city on October 22.

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