Kazakh capital hosted C5+1 High Level Meeting
Minister of Foreign Affairs of Kazakhstan BeibutAtamkulov, Deputy Chairman of the Cabinet of Ministers and Minister for ForeignAffairs of Turkmenistan Raşit Meredow, foreign ministers of Kyrgyzstan Chingiz Aidarbekov, Tajikistan – Sirodjidin Mukhriddin, Uzbekistan– Abdulaziz Kamilov and the U.S. Under Secretary of State for Political AffairsDavid Hale participated in the event, the press service of the Kazakh MFA says.
Addressing theparticipants, Beibut Atamkulov noted Kazakhstan’s interest in quality implementationof all the initiatives and agreements reached as a result of bilateral and multilateralinteraction of the region’s countries.
Further expansion oftrade ties, attraction of investments and implementation of multilateraleconomic projects in the region were on agenda of the C5+1 meeting. The participantsexpressed interest in joint development of infrastructure and transit-transportpotential of Central Asia.
As for security issues,the participants debated a wide range of challenges and threats, solution ofwhich requires a regional approach. These are the issues of contribution to the restoration of Afghanistan as well as exchangeof experience in repatriation and rehabilitation of the nationals evacuatedfrom the combat areas of Syria and Iraq.
The C5+1 format servesas a multilateral mechanism of interaction between the five Central Asiancountries and the U.S. The dialogue focuses on economic development, regionalcooperation and security issues. The first meeting with the participation ofthe foreign ministers of six countries was held on November 1, 2015 in Samarkand.