KAZAKHSTAN CREATES COUNTERINTELLIGENCE AGENCY IN THE WAKE OF ESPIONAGE SCANDAL.

President Nursultan Nazarbaev of Kazakhstan has issued a decree setting up an Agency for the Protection of State Secrets. The agency will be subordinated directly to the president. Its creation and operation are partly based on the law on the protection of state secrets, which was passed last week by the parliament. The parliamentary debate occasioned complaints from deputies and government officials that “state secrets are being stolen more and more frequently in Kazakhstan” (Habar, May 14).

The creation of a watchdog agency outside the framework of the National Security Committee (KNB) implies less than full confidence in the committee. The KNB’s standing has suffered from the recent exposure of its former deputy chairman, Major-General Rais Hadeev, who was caught transmitting information to one or more unnamed foreign countries from inside KNB’s headquarters. Hadeev has been sentenced to ten years at hard labor; the country–or one of the countries–he was spying for has been named as Iran (Habar, May 14; see the Monitor, January 27, February 3).

LIAISON GROUP FOR FOREIGN INVESTORS ALSO SET UP.