ASTANA, April 7 (RIA Novosti) - U.S. President Barack
Obama is set to visit Kazakhstan during a tour of the Central
Asian region, a spokesman for the Kazakh senate reported on
Tuesday.
Kazakh Senate Speaker Kasym-Zhomart Tokayev, currently
attending a forum of the United Nations Alliance of
Civilizations in Istanbul, passed Obama an invitation from the
Kazakh president, Nursultan Nazarbayev, at a meeting on Monday.
Obama described U.S. relations with Kazakhstan as
"strategic" and promised to visit the "friendly" ex-Soviet
republic.
On a separate note, Tokayev confirmed that Kazakhstan was
ready to adhere to the nuclear non-proliferation policies
agreed at recent talks in Astana with Iranian President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad.
The Kazakh senator also informed Obama of his country's
readiness to set up a nuclear fuel bank as part of a civilian
program supervised by the International Atomic Energy Agency,
which Nazarbayev announced recently.
In September 2008, Washington said it would allocate $50
million to create a nuclear fuel bank under the UN nuclear
watchdog, and called on all countries to invest funds for the
purpose.
Some countries have already made the decision to allocate
$5-10 million for this task.
Ahmadinejad said he backed Nazarbayev's idea, saying: "We
believe Nazarbayev's proposal to create a nuclear fuel bank in
Kazakhstan is a very good proposal."
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