The results of Ahmadinejad?s visit to Kazakhstan

ASTANA. April 15. KAZINFORM. The Central Asian state of Kazakhstan is a rising power with enormous natural gas and oil reserves as well as vast quantities of uranium. Its phenomenal rise has regional as well as global implications. Regionally, it can affect the balance of power more than any other state in the region, and being a Caspian littoral state, it can also play a positive role vis-a-vis Iran, which is also a Caspian littoral state; Kazinform refers to Today's Zaman.
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Last week, this fact made itself evident once more during Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's two-day official visit to Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan, with the aim of strengthening bilateral relations in various areas. The visit served this purpose not only through the signing of five new cooperation deals -- ranging from sports to setting up a joint tanker company -- but also led to two new developments that could influence two major issues of contention. The first issue concerns the nearly two-decade-old dispute over the legal status of the Caspian Sea, which, of course, is viewed as a new energy basin after the Middle East. In this context, during his talks with President Ahmadinejad, President Nursultan Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan offered a new proposal to help solve the legal dispute. ?We think it would be more logical to establish sovereign zones, extending 22 to 25 miles from the Caspian shore, which would be considered state territory. I think this would be a good compromise,'' he said. In fact, Nazarbayev's proposal represents a ?third solution? to the dispute because so far littoral states were divided between two possible solutions: to divide the Caspian into national sectors extending from an individual country's coastline to a determined midway point or to divide the Caspian equally among the five littoral states, which Iran is the most ardent and stubborn supporter of so far. The other development has to do with the current dispute over Iran's nuclear program. In this context, President Nazarbayev proposed a nuclear fuel repository or bank be created -- and suggested his country could host the facility ?as a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty [NPT] and as a country that has voluntarily renounced nuclear weapons.? In responding to Nazarbayev's proposal, President Ahmadinejad staunchly defended his country's right to enrich uranium for its nuclear program, but at the same time welcomed Nazarbayev's proposal, ?especially considering Kazakhstan's past.'' ?We think that President Nursultan Nazarbayev's idea to host a nuclear fuel bank is a very good proposal,? he said. However, he did not say that Iran would give up its right to produce nuclear fuel; Kazakh Embassy in the USA informs referring to Today's Zaman.
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