Kazakhstan the most important partner for U.S. in CA - Columbia Uni Fellow

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NEW YORK. KAZINFORM Kazakhstan is Americas's most important partner in Central Asia, says the Mellon Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow at the Harriman Institute at Columbia University, Edward J. Lemon, Kazinform correspondent reports.

According to him, the relations between the countries have been developing steadily since Kazakhstan gained independence in 1991, and that this development was greatly facilitated by Kazakhstan's voluntary renunciation of its nuclear weapons arsenal.

The expert notes that the United States is mainly interested in economic cooperation with Kazakhstan, primarily in the oil&gas, mining and metallurgical sectors. He also stressed that the trade turnover between Kazakhstan and the United States has reached $2 billion, which exceeds the aggregate of that with the rest of Central Asian states, as well as the fact that the United States has invested $50 billion in Kazakhstan's economy.

According to Edward J. Lemon, the United States benefits from stable Kazakhstan, and the good atmosphere in which the recent meeting between the two presidents was held, as well as the Joint Statement on Enhanced Strategic Partnership, adopted as the result of it, mean that cooperation between the two countries will continue to deepen.

Speaking about Kazakhstan's presidency in the UN Security Council, Edward J. Lemon said that it was in a difficult and challenging time of global instability and growing tensions between the West and Russia that Kazakhstan took on such an important role.

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