Kazakhstan FM readying for South-East Asian visits

Kazakhstan Foreign Minister Erlan Idrisov will undertake official visits to several South-East Asian countries.

Mr. Idrisov will visit Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore. He will also participate in the VI Civilizations Alliance Forum in Bali, Indonesia, and the UN Summit on small Island States (Apia, Samoa).

According to a Kazpravda.kz report, it quoted the Ministry of Foreign Affairs press service, as saying, "In the Foreign Ministry, Erlan Idrisov met with the ambassadors of ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) member-states, accredited in Kazakhstan to discuss the interaction in the framework of ASEAN and the preparation for the upcoming South-East Asian visits- to Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and participation in the VI Civilizations Alliance Forum (in Bali, Indonesia) and the UN Summit on small Island States (Apia, Samoa).

The meeting was attended by the ambassadors of: Vietnam - Nguyen Van Hoa, Indonesia - Foster Gultom, Malaysia - Hidayat Abdul Hamid," the press service said.

Mr. Idrisov shared his vision on strengthening of the cooperation with the ASEAN nations and the Association itself in multilateral venues such as the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA), Asian Cooperation Dialogue, Asia-Europe Forum.

He also underlined that Kazakhstan, as the initiator of the CICA, is for signing a Memorandum of Understanding between the CICA and the ASEAN. He hopes that a number of the Association' member-states will soon join the CICA as members or observers.

In the meetings during the upcoming visits, topical issues of bilateral cooperation in political, trade-economic, cultural and humanitarian areas are to be discussed, also the interaction within international organizations.

MoCs are expected to be signed with the foreign ministries of the visited countries.

The exact date of the visits will be announced later.