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JAMES APPATHURAI (NATO Spokesman): Ladies and gentlemen, the Secretary General and the President will each have opening statements and then we have time for one or two questions. Secretary General.
ANDERS FOGH RASMUSSEN (Secretary General of NATO): Good afternoon. First of all, I would like to extend a warm welcome to President Nazarbayev. It is really a great pleasure to have you here at NATO Headquarters.
Kazakhstan is a leading partner of NATO in Central Asia, and the visit of President Nazarbayev is very welcome. I hope it will provide a new political dynamic to a promising development of our partnership.
I'm glad to say that our talks today have confirmed a joint desire to look for new areas and opportunities to broaden our political dialogue, as well as our practical cooperation. We have solid foundations, concrete projects in such diverse fields as defence and security sector reform, military interoperability, civil emergency planning and scientific cooperation.
We have an Individual Partnership Action Plan. It remains an appropriate mechanism. We are looking forward to additional inputs and engagements in line with Kazakhstan's own priorities.
I expect that during NATO's Lisbon Summit next month we will adopt a new Strategic Concept which will further operate the role of partnerships. We have concurred today that such a development would be in line with the changing security environment and wishes of partners themselves, including Kazakhstan.
I'm also grateful for the Kazakh support to our ISAF operation in Afghanistan. NATO's mission in Afghanistan, on the basis of a United Nations mandate, is to assist the Afghan government in stabilizing the country and thus helping to improve the security situation in the whole region.
Political support and practical assistance from our Kazakh friends is therefore most appreciated, and in particular I would like to thank the President for the agreement allowing transit of goods to Afghanistan through Kazakhstan. Shipments undertaken this year went very smoothly. Any new forms of direct assistance to our top priority mission in Afghanistan will, of course, be highly appreciated.
I applaud serious efforts made by your country, Mr. President, to manage an active chairmanship of the OSCE. NATO and our allies are strongly in favour of energizing the OSCE because of its unique qualities, especially in the area of conflict prevention and promotion of Euro-Atlantic standards.
Mr. President, I look forward to further strengthening the partnership between Kazakhstan and NATO.
NURSULTAN NAZARBAYEV (President of Kazakhstan): Thank you very much, Secretary General. Ladies and gentlemen, as was said, we have just finished negotiations with Mr. Rasmussen, the Secretary General of NATO. We have conducted a survey of the state of relations between NATO and Kazakhstan and also talked about international security. And I should like to say here that our relations with the North Atlantic Treaty are developing very well, and under the PfP program we are involved in a whole range of cooperative activities, which are well beyond the purely military sphere.
Last year we had the first NATO forum in the post-Soviet space, an informal ministerial meeting and every year on a regular basis in Kazakhstan we hold the international Steppe Eagle exercises with NATO units taking part. And we have also appointed a new military representative of Kazakhstan to NATO.
Kazakhstan is particularly interested in cooperating with NATO in the areas of security, countering transporter challenges and threats, modernization and re-equipping of our armed forces, rescue and border security services.
I would just like to say also that NATO's senior officers attach great importance to the Astana OSCE Summit which will take place on the 1st and 2nd of December of this year, and I have extended an invitation to the Secretary General to attend.
It is seen as a very significant contribution of Kazakhstan to the efforts being undertaken by the international community at large to strengthen world security. We note with satisfaction that Kazakhstan is considered to be one of the key partners of the Alliance in the region in terms of strengthening and supporting the ISAF operation in Afghanistan. We have, as a country, put at the disposal of NATO railroad and air corridors for supplies to Afghanistan.
We have also signed a bilateral agreement. We believe that it is very important that Kazakhstan should be represented at the NATO Summit in Lisbon. I think our negotiations, our talks, speak very loudly of the fact that our relations have huge prospects and that this is all developing very good, favourable conditions.
Thank you very much.
Q: ( Inaudible (?)) ... general security.
ANDERS FOGH RASMUSSEN: We have a well-developing partnership between NATO and Kazakhstan. As is the case today we have political... high level political consultations to which I attach strong importance when it comes to general security matters. I hope that we can continue such high level political talks. I'm very grateful for the invitation I have received today to attend the OSCE Summit in Astana. And the President has also invited me to visit Kazakhstan and this demonstrates a clear commitment to continuing the political consultations, political dialogue between Kazakhstan and NATO.
But also as regards practical cooperation, I think our partnership could be further developed. But in particular I would like to stress the importance of the Kazakh support for our mission in Afghanistan. The question was about Kazakhstan's contribution to general security, and I think Kazakhstan's support for our mission in Afghanistan is a real, and very strong contribution to improving security in the whole region.