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Russian President Vladimir Putin is anticipated to go to Kazakhstan on November 9 for an official go to. Putin’s journey marks simply his third worldwide foray in 2023, after visits final month to Kyrgyzstan and China, and comes on the heels of French President Emmanuel Macron’s journey by Central Asia, together with a cease in Astana.
The Kazakh presidential press service introduced on November 6 that Putin would go to this week on the invitation of President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev. The announcement famous that the 2 leaders deliberate to carry talks on bilateral points and their strategic partnership. The 2 presidents may even take part, just about, within the nineteenth Russia-Kazakhstan Interregional Cooperation Discussion board that shall be held within the metropolis of Kostanay in northern Kazakhstan.
In feedback to the media on November 7 after the Kremlin confirmed the assembly, spokesman Dmitry Peskov pushed again on the suggestion that the go to was associated to the latest overtures by Europe to Kazakhstan. Throughout Macron’s go to to Astana final week, the French and Kazakh sides signed a declaration of intent on cooperation on essential minerals. The French are additionally desirous about Kazakhstan’s uranium, provided that the Central Asian nation is the world’s largest producer of uranium.
Putin’s go to, Peskov stated, “just isn’t related to every other contacts [made by Kazakhstan]. We’ll additional develop our good neighborliness and cooperation with Kazakhstan.”
Peskov characterised the upcoming go to as “crucial from the perspective of the additional growth of your entire advanced of our bilateral relations.” He additionally commented that there could be a “synchronization of clocks on your entire advanced of relations” between Kazakhstan and Russia in the course of the go to.
And relations between Kazakhstan and Russia are actually advanced. The 2 nations share an extended historical past collectively throughout the Soviet Union, and within the 30 years since its collapse have remained carefully tied collectively by social, political, army, and financial bonds. They sit side-by-side in a wide range of regional groupings, from the Commonwealth of Unbiased States (CIS) and the Collective Safety Treaty Group (CSTO) to the Shanghai Cooperation Group (SCO), which additionally consists of China.
On the similar time, Kazakhstan has enshrined as its guiding international coverage mild the phrase “multi-vector,” which allows it, within the easiest phrases, to play with everybody on the playground. However Russia’s relations with Kazakhstan have the burden of historical past behind them and the depth of ties – throughout many sectors – is nigh unattainable to flee.
Kazakhstan, which shares the world’s longest steady worldwide border with Russia, is in a customs union with Moscow, through the Eurasian Financial Union (EAEU), which has served to complicate efforts to impede “parallel imports” that circumvent worldwide sanctions on Russia. Whereas on the one hand, Tokayev has promised Western leaders that Kazakhstan wouldn’t assist Russia circumvent sanctions, as Rahimbek Abdrahmanov and Kamshat Zhumagulova famous in a latest article, that is tough to sq. with the nation’s concurrent pledges to pursue complete cooperation with Russia.
Kazakh Deputy Prime Minister Serik Zhumangarin in feedback on November 7 tried to maneuver away from the clouds that comply with Putin, however any point out of Russia and commerce in the identical sentence will invariably summon questions on sanctions evasion.
“What room is there for politics on this context?” he stated. “Our agenda is centered on financial and commerce relations. Specialists and leaders of the areas are arriving to ink agreements centered on commerce throughout the areas. That is clearly within the curiosity of each nations.”
“The economic system at all times comes first; politics come later,” he stated.
As Kazakhstan continues to stroll the tightrope between Russia and the West, visits similar to Putin’s upcoming journey shall be watched fastidiously.
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