Secretary Pompeo’s Visit to Kazakhstan

You are subscribed to Collected Releases for U.S. Department of State. This information has recently been updated, and is now available. Secretary Pompeo's Visit to Kazakhstan 02/01/2020 08:27 AM EST Office of the Spokesperson Secretary Pompeo will travel to Kazakhstan on February 1-2, where he will meet with President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, First President Nursultan Nazarbayev, and Foreign Minister Mukhtar Tileuberdi to reaffirm our enhanced strategic partnership and discuss avenues to increase bilateral trade and investment. THE UNITED STATES AND KAZAKHSTAN ARE PARTNERS IN COUNTERTERRORISM AND FORCES FOR REGIONAL SECURITY The United States is a long-time strategic partner of Kazakhstan. The United States was the first nation to recognize Kazakhstan's independence from the former Soviet Union in 1991, and our bilateral relations have flourished ever since. The United States and Kazakhstan closely cooperate to fight transnational terrorism and violent extremism to ensure the safety and prosperity of our peoples – and people across the globe. We applaud Kazakhstan's leadership in repatriating almost 600 foreign terrorist fighters and associated family members from northeast Syria and Iraq and rehabilitating and reintegrating some individuals back into society. The United States has provided border security assistance to help Kazakhstan mitigate transnational crime and outflows of foreign terrorist fighters, including providing x-ray scanning machines, explosives detection equipment, all-terrain vehicles, radios, body armor, and night vision systems. S. authorities work with Kazakhstan's law enforcement agencies to combat money laundering and the financing of terrorism, narcotics abuse and trafficking, and human trafficking. Kazakhstan has played a helpful role to support peace in Afghanistan, including providing logistical access to Afghanistan, educating the next generation of Afghan professionals, and strengthening all of Afghan civil society through efforts such as the 2018 Women's Empowerment Conference in Nur-Sultan. In August 2019, Kazakhstan hosted a C5+1 High-Level Security Discussion in Nur-Sultan, where top officials from the United States, Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan reaffirmed their support for the C5+1 platform as a valuable forum for addressing common threats. OUR COOPERATION IN NUCLEAR SECURITY AND NON-PROLIFERATION HAS BEEN THE CORNERSTONE OF OUR RELATIONSHIP Since the fall of the Soviet Union, the United States has assisted Kazakhstan in the removal of Soviet-era nuclear warheads, weapons-grade materials, and supporting infrastructure. At its independence in 1991, Kazakhstan had the fourth largest stockpile of nuclear warheads in the world. Kazakhstan renounced its nuclear weapons in 1993 and removed its last nuclear warheads in 1995. Kazakhstan continues to show global leadership in nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation, as a party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BWC), the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, and as a sponsor of a UN General Assembly resolution to establish an International Day Against Nuclear Tests. Kazakhstan participated in Nuclear Security Summits in Washington, DC (2010 and 2016), Seoul (2012), and The Hague (2014). For decades, the United States has assisted Kazakhstan with mitigating the damaging effects of the Soviet Union's nuclear tests on Kazakhstan's civilian population and environment. More than 25 percent of all the nuclear tests in the world were conducted on Kazakhstani soil. The United States has helped Kazakhstan seal 200 nuclear test tunnels. The United States has worked with Kazakhstan to strengthen capabilities to deter, detect, and investigate the smuggling of nuclear and radiological materials by providing the expertise and tools needed to respond to smuggling events and has increased safety and security for more than 13,000 radioactive sources. The two countries have also removed or down-blended more than 200 kilograms of Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU) – more than enough for eight nuclear weapons – and are working to convert the last two HEU reactors in Kazakhstan. ROBUST ENERGY AND TRADE TIES BENEFIT OUR ECONOMIES AND PEOPLES A U.S.-Kazakhstan Bilateral Investment Treaty has been in place since 1994. In 2018, U.S.-Kazakhstan bilateral trade was valued at $ 2.1 billion, a 57 percent increase from 2017. The United States is one of the largest sources of foreign investment in Kazakhstan. As of July 2019, U.S. foreign direct investment comprised 18.5 percent of the total foreign direct investment in Kazakhstan, with cumulative investments by American companies of about $31.23 billion. The United States and Kazakhstan signed an Open Skies civil air agreement in December 2019, which, once in force, will apply to all international airports in Kazakhstan. American businesses, including Chevron and ExxonMobil, are at the forefront in assisting Kazakhstan to achieve its tremendous potential in the energy sector. In July 2016, Chevron and partners announced a $37 billion (now estimated at more than $45 billion) expansion of the Tengiz field, expected to be completed in 2022. These companies work continually to develop Kazakhstan's human capital, improve infrastructure in the communities where they operate in cooperation with local government, and maximize the life and production of Kazakhstan's world-class oilfields. 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