On July 6 in Astana, Presidents Vladimir Putin of Russia and Nursultan Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan witnessed the signing of a production-sharing agreement on Kazakhstan's Kurmangazy offshore oilfield. State oil company Rosneft President Sergei Bogdanchikov signed the agreement for the Russian side; Kazakhstan's Energy and Mineral... MORE

Kazakhstan's President Nursultan Nazarbayev is gaining moral support for his initiative to form a union of Central Asian states, as declared in his annual address to the nation in February. Significantly, Nazarbayev recently noted that the Central Asian states strive for economic, as well as... MORE

Vladimir Bozhko, first deputy chairman of Kazakhstan's National Security Committee (KNB), believes that the terrorist threat to Kazakhstan is real and growing. Highlighting the nature of that threat as it emerges within the country, he has called for a new approach to the whole issue... MORE

During the last two months, Kazakh state officials have made an unprecedented number of "working trips" to remote regions of the country. In what was widely perceived as a pre-election publicity stunt, President Nursultan Nazarbayev toured the coal-rich Karaganda region on June 15 and praised... MORE

One of the uneasy topics discussed during Nursultan Nazarbayev's May meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Chelyabinsk, but overshadowed by other issues, was the long-standing row between Russia's Magnitogorsk Metallurgical Combine (MMK) and the Sokolov Sarybay State Industrial Corporation. Sokolov Sarybay is the largest... MORE

Kazakhstan's armed forces, greatly in need of financial and materiel support from Western countries, has received a significant boost from Turkey. Turkey has donated more than $1.3 million worth of military and technical equipment to the Kazakhstani armed forces, aimed at contributing to the overall... MORE

On June 7 the prominent opposition journalist Batyrkhan Darimbet died in Taraz, southern Kazakhstan. He had been hospitalized since June 2 after a car accident near Taraz city, where he reportedly had gone to set up local branches of Alga, DVK! (Forward, Democratic Choice of... MORE

Despite considerable public interest, Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko's first visit to Kazakhstan was rather anti-climactic. Official media sources in Kazakhstan did not go beyond the set pattern for covering state visits, namely highlighting a growing trade volume (around $1 billion last year) and discussing economic... MORE

At the Baku inauguration events, President Nursultan Nazarbayev confirmed Kazakhstan's intention to develop a trans-Caspian oil transport system, linked to the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline. If achieved on the scale that is now envisaged, this export route could deeply dent Russia's near-monopoly on the transit of... MORE