On the sidelines of a working visit to Astana, the National Leader of the Turkmen people, Chairman of the Halk Maslahaty Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov met today, 3 November, with the President of Kazakhstan Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, the press service of the President of Kazakhstan reports.
Tokayev expressed gratitude to Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov for his personal participation in the 10th anniversary summit of the Organization of Turkic States.
The President of Kazakhstan stressed that the meeting with the Chairman of the Halk Maslahaty will further strengthen the mutually beneficial partnership between the fraternal countries. According to him, Kazakh-Turkmen relations are developing successfully and fully correspond to the level of strategic partnership.
Tokayev underlined that Arkadag Berdimuhamedov “has made a huge contribution to the development of cooperation between Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan”.
“I believe that your stay here and our meeting today are of great practical and political importance. Of course, we have a lot to talk about in terms of further development of cooperation between our countries. We are fraternal, neighboring states. There are no problems between Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. There are only fraternal feelings,” he added.
In turn, Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov thanked Kassym-Jomart Tokayev for the invitation to take part in the work of the anniversary summit of the OTS and highly appreciated the interaction of the two countries.
“Over the years, we have accumulated a legal framework on foreign policy, trade, economic, cultural and humanitarian issues. If we talk about foreign policy issues, we are grateful to you. You always support our positive neutral status. And I would like to emphasize separately that we are grateful to you, since you, working as a head in the structures of the United Nations, have done a lot for our foreign policy course,” Chairman of the Halk Maslahaty of Turkmenistan said.
The sides praised the positive dynamics in mutual trade and discussed the implementation of a number of projects in the fields of energy, industry, transport, logistics and other areas. During the meeting, the readiness to further deepen cultural and humanitarian ties was also confirmed.
In continuation of the conversation, Berdimuhamedov expressed condolences on his own behalf and on behalf of President of Turkmenistan in connection with the incident at the mine in the Karaganda region, which resulted in numerous human casualties and injuries.
One of the key areas of the Turkmen-Kazakh partnership is the trade and economic sphere. It was noted that there is a significant untapped potential in trade relations, which must be used to bring trade turnover to $ 1 billion.
In this regard, Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov also proposed concrete measures to strengthen trade and economic cooperation between the two countries. He suggested activating the Working Group to increase trade turnover and expand the range of goods supplied between Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan, holding the first meeting of the Turkmen-Kazakh Business Council, opening trading houses of Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan in the capitals of the two states, and studying the creation of a border trade center between the Balkan province of Turkmenistan and the Mangistau region of Kazakhstan.
One of the topics of the meeting was the transport sector.
The parties stressed the relevance of further measures to fully utilize the potential of the transcontinental railway Kazakhstan–Turkmenistan–Iran.
Along with this, the effectiveness of the creation of the China–Kazakhstan–Turkmenistan–Iran transport corridor along the route of the ancient Great Silk Road with access to the ports of the Persian Gulf was emphasized. The sides also spoke in favor of expanding the volume of traffic between the ports of Turkmenbashi and Aktau.
In the energy sector, Berdimuhamedov confirmed Turkmenistan’s readiness to intensify the bilateral dialogue on the supply of Turkmen natural gas to Kazakhstan. To this end, the expediency of organizing a meeting between the relevant ministries and companies of the two countries in the near future was noted.
He also noted the potential for cooperation in the electric power industry, pointing to the construction of a new power plant in the Balkan province with a capacity of 1574 MW, which could be used to supply electricity to Kazakhstan.
Discussing issues of cultural and humanitarian cooperation, Arkadag proposed to organize Days of Culture of Turkmenistan in Kazakhstan in 2024.
Taking the opportunity, the National Leader of the Turkmen people thanked the Head of Kazakhstan for the initiative to build a monument to the great Turkmen thinker, poet, and philosopher Magtymguly Fragi in Astana.
He also informed Tokayev that a monument to the Kazakh thinker, scientist, philosopher, and great poet Abai Kunanbayuly will be built on the territory of the Magtymguly Fragi cultural and park complex under construction.
Arkadag also invited Kazakhstan to take part in the events next year on the occasion of the 300th anniversary of the birth of Magtymguly Fraga. Within the framework of the International Organization of Turkic Culture TURKSOY, 2024 has been declared the Year of Magtymguly Fragi.///nCa, 3 November 2023
#Turkmenistan, #Kazakhstan