KAZAKHSTAN INCHING OUT OF RUSSIA’S MILITARY ORBIT.

Kazakhstan’s defense minister, Col. Gen. Alibek Kasymov, signed in Ankara last week a military-industrial cooperation agreement and a protocol on military training with Turkish defense minister Turhan Tayan. Turkish officials said the military-industrial agreement covered the same topics as the one already signed by Turkey with Israel. Kasymov was received by Turkish president Suleyman Demirel and Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan — a fact which Kasymov described as indicating the significance Ankara attaches to relations with Almaty.

Yesterday Kazakhstan’s president Nursultan Nazarbayev inaugurated a military academy specialized in training professional army sergeants on the U.S. model. Nazarbayev and Kasymov specified on the occasion that Kazakhstan is the first CIS member country to introduce the U.S. Army’s sergeant system as a pillar of a professional army which Kazakhstan is beginning to create. Last week, Kazakhstan opened its first airforce training school. (Ankara TV, September 3; Xinhua, September 4; Interfax, September 9)

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