OSCE to update methods for Kazakhstan

OSCE plans to strengthen cooperation with Kazakhstan, Tengrinews reports citing the OSCE Secretary General Lamberto Zannier.

Zannier met with Kazakhstan’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Yerlan Idrissov to discuss OSCE’s cooperation with Kazakhstan and the crisis in Ukraine.

“We want to update our methods of working with Kazakhstan and within Kazakhstan. We want to modernize our work here. We view the Kazakhstan-2050 Strategy as an important list of priorities. And we will be enhancing Kazakhstan's role and the role that the OSCE plays in this region,” Zannier said after the meeting.

During the meeting the diplomats addressed the importance of resolving the Ukrainian crisis.

“We are talking about stretching the security community from the Atlantic to Vladivostok. We need to join our efforts to make the security comprehensive,” the OSCE Secretary General said, adding that security of every given country was only as good as the security of its neighbors.

The Kazakhstan Minister agreed that the OSCE has an important role to play. “The OSCE has a special mission in the ongoing situation in Ukraine. And we all hope that the Geneva Agreement will work. We know that the OSCE is given a special role by this agreement,” Idrissov said and wished the Secretary General “good luck in this very important mission”.

“You know that Kazakhstan has always wanted for the Ukrainian crisis to end as soon as possible. Ukraine is our longtime important partner. And we truly want the crisis to end and for the country to continue along the path of development,” the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Kazakhstan added.

The quadrilateral negotiations between Ukraine, Russia, the United States and European Union in Geneva lasted for more than seven hours. As a result, the parties agreed on the necessity to disarm illegal groups, free squares and streets of protesters and declare amnesty.

The Kazakhstan Foreign Ministry called the decision "a sign of wisdom and readiness to constructively resolve disagreements".

By Baubek Konyrov, writing by Gyuzel Kamalova, editing by Tatyana Kuzmina