Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Kazakhstan Roman Vassilenko presented the country’s approaches to solving current regional and global problems at the World Policy Conference held on November 3-5 in Abu Dhabi, El.kz cites MFA.
More than 200 representatives of governments, leading think tanks and international companies from Europe, Asia, Africa and America attended the conference, organized for the 16th time by the Institut Français des Relations Internationales (IFRI) and held this year under the title “The International System between Globalization and Disintegration: Which Forces Will Prevail?”
In his remarks at the session devoted to Eurasian perspectives on the changing geopolitical configurations, the Kazakh diplomat outlined his country’s commitment to the UN Charter and compliance with its basic principles, including, first of all, respect for territorial integrity, the inviolability of borders and the sovereignty of states. It is the position of Kazakhstan that it is on this basis that the solution to international conflicts and contradictions should be based.
In this context, he drew the attention of conference participants to the approaches of President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev to reforming the UN, including those voiced from the rostrum of this global organization. He noted that Kazakhstan stands for strengthening and reforming the UN by increasing the authority of the UN General Assembly as the most representative body and expanding the membership of the UN Security Council by including states, including the so-called middle powers, representing different regions of the world.
Answering the moderator’s questions, Roman Vassilenko expressed Kazakhstan’s interest in the speedy conclusion of a peace treaty between Armenia and Azerbaijan and in establishing an atmosphere of trust and cooperation between them and in that region generally, which will contribute to the further opening and unblocking of transport communications in the South Caucasus. According to him, this will have a beneficial impact on the further intensive development of the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route (TITR) — the Middle Corridor — something that will meet the interests of Kazakhstan, the countries of Asia and Europe.
During the discussion, the Deputy Foreign Minister identified three interrelated trends affecting the development of the situation in Central Asia and around it.
First, it has to do with the persistence of problems in the field of socio-economic and environmental security caused by global warming, and political security related to the challenges posed by the situation in Afghanistan; secondly, there’s a growing and closer cooperation of Central Asian states in responding to these challenges, leading to an increase in the subjectivity of the region in world politics; and thirdly, there’s more active involvement and interaction of external actors, such as Russia, China, the United States, the European Union, Türkiye and the Arab nations, with the countries of the region in both bilateral and multilateral formats. (He added currently there are already 11 dialogue platforms with international partners in the “Central Asia Plus” format.)
In this context, citing as an example the strong reaction of the people in Kazakhstan to recent headlines in some western media, Roman Vassilenko noted the irrelevance, unacceptability and fallacy of perceiving the countries of Central Asia through the prism of outdated concepts of the “Great Game”. He emphasized that Astana, on the contrary, proposes and promotes the concept of “Great Gain for all”, believing that common challenges, such as the need to increase interconnectivity, fight climate warming, and ensure sustainable economic growth, should play a unifying role.
Remarks by the Kazakh official evoked an interested reaction from audience members, many of whom noted the importance of the continued focused attention of the international political and business community on the processes in Central Asia and of the support for constructive initiatives of states such as Kazakhstan.
On the sidelines of the conference, the Kazakh diplomat met with IFRI founder and president Thierry de Montbrial. The two discussed the results of the recent official visit of French President Emmanuel Macron to Astana and the prospects for further cooperation with this authoritative French think tank, including in the context of preparing a new visit of the Kazakh President to Paris next year.