Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.com) -- Astana and Tashkent are building a constructive dialogue and creating a friendly political platform for relations. This was stated by Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Kazakhstan Ermukhambet Konuspayev at the international conference “Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. Prospects for the development of strategic partnership and alliance”.

Ermukhambet emphasized that this event, like the recent meeting of the leaders of the two countries, is taking place in the anniversary year of the Kazakh-Uzbek partnership.

According to the diplomat, over 30 years of cooperation they managed to build a constructive dialogue and create a friendly political platform for relations. During this period, 36 meetings and more than 20 high-level telephone conversations were held, which in turn allowed the two fraternal countries to “compare watches” on current and emerging security issues.

Moreover, he noted, over the past five years, economic cooperation has been brought to a qualitatively new level and acquired strategic contours. This is in particular due to the conclusion in 2017 between the two countries of the “Strategy for Economic Cooperation for 2017-2019”, which became the impetus for the growth of the economy and trade.

In this vein, E. Konuspaev recalled the achievements made on 21 December 2022 agreements and trade contracts worth a total of more than US$8 billion were signed on the sidelines of the Uzbek-Kazakh business forum. Moreover, commercial contracts were signed for US$2.5 billion.

All this indicates that the tasks set by the leaders of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan to increase trade relations to US$10 billion will be achieved in the coming years.

The event, organized by ISMI jointly with MICA in partnership with KazISS, was attended by the heads of the foreign ministries of Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, the Institute for Foreign Policy Studies under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Kazakhstan, the Institute of World Economy and Politics under the Foundation of the First President of the Republic of Kazakhstan, representatives of the diplomatic corps, experts from the "think tanks" of the two countries.