RK Ambassador met with Federal Minister for Religious Affairs of Pakistan

ISLAMABAD. February 20. KAZINFORM On February 17 Ambassador of Kazakhstan to the Islamic Republic of Pakistan Bakhytbek Shabarbayev met with Federal Minister for Religious Affairs of this country Syed Hamid Saeed Kazmi. The parties exchanged views on bilateral cooperation and interaction of the countries in multilateral format, Kazinform reports.

B. Shabarbayev briefed about implementation of Kazakhstan?s model of inter-cultural and inter-faith dialogue and the work of the Religious Affairs Committee and International Centre of Cultures and Religions of the RK Justice Ministry. Cooperation with similar structures in different countries of the world is one of the key directions of the Committee?s activity therefore tuning up contacts with same institutions of Pakistan was touched upon as well. The Ambassador expressed gratitude to the Pakistani Government for active participation and support of RK President Nursultan Nazarbayev?s initiative on convocation of the Congress of the Leaders of the World and Traditional Religions which had allowed our country to become a centre of the global inter-faith dialogue. Since 2003 Chairman and members of the Council of Islamic Ideology, famous scientists of the International Islamic University of Pakistan have taken an active part in the work of the Secretariat of the Congress of the World and Traditional Religions? Leaders and later in preparation for the Conference of Foreign Ministers of the Islamic and West countries Common World: Progress through Diversity in last October. The Kazakh Diplomat informed the Federal Minister of Pakistan of the oncoming chairmanship of Kazakhstan in the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in 2010 and in the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) in 2011. Promotion of the dialogue among cultures and religions will become one of the major issues of the agenda during Kazakhstan?s chairmanship in the OSCE, B. Shabarbayev noted. The Pakistani side was proposed to participate in development of the agenda of the OSCE activity for the next year and determination of possible spheres of cooperation between the OIC and the OSCE.