Saudabayev had several meetings in Geneva

ASTANA. March 2. KAZINFORM Yesterday in Geneva Minister of Foreign Affairs of Kazakhstan Kanat Saudabayev had bilateral meetings with the United Nations' High Commissioner for Human Rights Navanethem Pillay and with António Guterres, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Kazinform cites the press service of the Kazakh Foreign Office.

Issues regarding further development of cooperation between Kazakhstan and the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) were discussed at the meeting with Mrs. Navanethem Pillay. The Minister said that Kazakhstan backed the review activity of the UN Human Rights Council started in 2010. He added also that the Council should always keep a reasonable balance between political, civil rights on one hand and economic, social and cultural rights on the other hand.

K. Saudabayev informed N. Pillay of Kazakhstan's consistent policy aimed at strengthening the system of human rights protection, at ensuring the citizens' fundamental rights to education, healthcare and solution of social problems.

N. Pillay highly appraised the level of cooperation with Kazakhstan, in particular, the steps on improvement of human rights protection system taken on the Kazakh President's initiative. She highlighted that Kazakhstan had successfully passed the Universal Periodic Review the last year following which Kazakhstan adopted 120 recommendations on improvement of its human rights protection work. A working group on implementation of these recommendations is functioning currently.

N. Pillay took also positive view on the results of Kazakhstan's OSCE chairmanship including focus on the issues of tolerance. In this view she said she had great expectations from our forthcoming chairmanship in the Organization of the Islamic Conference.

The meeting of K. Saudabauyev with António Guterres focused on strengthening the cooperation of Kazakhstan with the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.

A. Guterres expressed satisfaction with the results of his recent visit to Kazakhstan. "We are deeply grateful to Kazakhstan for close cooperation with our Office and we are also satisfied with adoption of several legislative amendments in Kazakhstan which are directed regulation of treatment of refugees," he noted.

The parties discussed also certain directions of interaction including organization of an international regional conference on refugees scheduled for spring in Almaty.