Davutoglu to pay official visit to Kazakhstan

Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu is scheduled to leave for Kazakhstan tomorrow for an official three-day visit at the invitation of his Kazakh counterpart Kanat Saudabayev. In a statement on the visit, the Foreign Ministry said there is no Central Asian country Turkey has stronger relations with than Kazakhstan. During an official visit by Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev to Turkey last October, he and President Abdullah Gul signed a strategic partnership agreement. In June, Ankara will take over the term presidency of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia (CICA) from Kazakhstan, which has held the presidency since it was established in 1993. Ankara believes that Kazakhstan's one-year chairmanship of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), which began last month, will offer an opportunity to create synergy between the 56-nation transatlantic security body and the CICA, with close coordination between Turkey and Kazakhstan, the first ex-Soviet state to chair the OSCE, after making promises of democratic reforms.