18-22 June 2006

NATO Week in Kazakhstan News 19 June 2006 - NATO Science Committee meets in Kazakhstan 14 June 2006 - NATO NATO Week in Kazakhstan, 18-22 June 2006 A series of youth seminars, scientific workshops, essay competitions and high-level roundtables and press conferences, described as ‘NATO Week’, took place in Kazakstan from 18 to 22 June 2006, starting in Almaty and ending in Astana. NATO Week opened with an informal reception hosted by Ambassador John Ordway of the United States embassy, which serves as NATO’s Contact Point Embassy in Kazakhstan. Participants included diplomats from NATO countries and the heads of missions for the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe and the European Commission. In a separate venue, NATO also hosted the annual Contact Point Embassy (CPE) Regional Meeting that brought together ambassadors of NATO CPEs in Central Asia to share their experiences in the realms of security and public diplomacy. The fruitful exchange of views and ideas should help promote the strengthening of regional cooperation throughout Central Asia. NATO Week also saw the saw the official inauguration, on 20 June, of the first NATO depository library in Central Asia at the al-Farabi Kazakhstan National University (KAZNU) in Almaty, Kazakhstan. To mark the occasion, the university hosted a student essay competition on the subject, Kazakhstan and NATO: the Dialogue of Partners. The three winning students will accompany the next group of Kazakh academics to visit NATO headquarters. Finally, two high-level seminars took place during NATO Week. The International Institute of Modern Politics, an Almaty-based non-governmental organization, hosted a roundtable discussion among NATO officials and Kazakh opinion leaders on the subject: NATO and Kazakhstan : Sharing the Global Challenges of Defence Security in the 21 st Century. The Astana-based Eurasian National University hosted a seminar with interested academics on NATO-Kazakh scientific cooperation.