14:34, 30 April 2009 | GMT +5
Kazakh, US Ambassadors discuss <i>Path to Europe</i> program
BISHKEK. April 30. KAZINFORM /Vladimir Dobrovolsky/ Kazakh Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Bakyt Ospanov has held a meeting with US Ambassador to Kyrgyzstan Tatiana C. Gfoeller; Kazinform refers to the Kazakh Embassy in Bishkek.

At the meeting the Kazakh Ambassador noted that our country had always attached significance to cooperation with the USA. According to B.Ospanov, exchange of the governmental and parliamentary delegations of the two countries shows it.
The Kazakh diplomat noted that Kazakhstan received a legacy from the former Soviet Union on the fourth power of the arsenal of intercontinental ballistic missiles. Despite proposals to retain nuclear weapons and become the first Muslim nuclear power, the Kazakh leadership decided to renounce nuclear status in exchange for guarantees of its security from the leading nuclear powers. In that period the USA was our only foreign partner, which entirely financed liquidation of lethal nuclear arsenal of the former USSR. We plan to continue cooperation on creation and development of the scientific and material-technical basis on use of these materials in the scientific sphere, agriculture and healthcare.
One of the main directions of cooperation in this sphere is ?Joint Threat Reduction: program implementation.
At the meeting B.Ospanov emphasized that Kazakhstan actively promotes the course for further democratic transformations and implementation of socio-economic reforms. The correctness of this course was confirmed in Establishment of Kazakhstan as the OSCE chairman in 2010. ?Path to Europe state program? initiated by N.Nazarbayev was adopted for support of Kazakhstan?s new role.