S.M Krishna arrives in Kazakhstan

Astana (Kazakhstan), May 11 (ANI): External Affairs Minister S. M. Krishna arrived on a three-day State visit in Kazakhstan’s capital city Astana on Tuesday.

During his visit, Krishna will hold delegation-level talks with Foreign Minister Kanat Saudabayev. He will also call on the Prime Minister of Kazakhstan Karim Masimov and President Nazabayev.

Krishna and his Kazakh counterpart will review progress in bilateral relations, especially since the January 2009 visit of President Nursultan Nazarbayev, besides discussing regional and international issues of mutual interest.

He will also address the India-Kazakhstan Business Forum.

The visit will include a review of bilateral ties between the two countries, and an assessment of ways to take sectoral cooperation forward.

More importantly, the visit would highlight and focus on two important sectors of cooperation - hydrocarbon and energy, including civil nuclear energy.

Both the countries would actively be discussing modalities to take cooperation forward in these sectors and in other sectors.

Ahead of the Krishna’s visit, the Ministry of External Affairs spokesman Vishnu Prakash in New Delhi, said: “We are both multi-ethnic and multicultural societies. India and Kazakhstan also have a strategic partnership, which was unveiled during the visit of President of Kazakhstan, Mr. Nursultan Nazarbayev, when he had come to India in January 2009. He was also the Chief Guest at the Republic Day Celebrations then. Both countries have an ambitious and forward looking agenda of cooperation,” he said.

A delegation of business leaders representing leading organizations and business houses like Tata International Limited, Sun Group, Apollo Hospitals, Punj Lloyd, Tata Motors, BHEL, ONGC, etc. are also accompanying the minister.

“We have a very broad canvas of cooperation that includes sectors like agriculture, energy, including thermal energy, civil construction, mining, fertilizers, information technology, harmaceuticals, petrochemicals and so on, and of course, the cultural sector, people-to-people contacts. That is a kind of canvas of cooperation that we have been working on,” the pokesman had stated. (ANI)