TCA
BISHKEK (TCA) — A significant growth of direct investments in Russia and other Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) member states — Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan — is expected in 2018, according to the report by the Centre for Integration Studies of the Eurasian Development Bank “EAEU and Eurasia: Monitoring and Analysis of Direct Investments – 2017”.
TCA
ASTANA (TCA) — In the period of 2015-2016, within the framework of the Nurly Zhol program, 1,300 km of motor roads were reconstructed in Kazakhstan, Chairman of the Roads Committee of the Ministry for Investments and Development Mereke Pshembayev told a briefing on December 25, the official website of the Prime Minister of Kazakhstan reported.
TCA
KABUL (TCA) — Afghanistan’s Chief of Army Staff General Mohammad Sharif Yaftali has rejected a recent figure issued by Zamir Kabulov, Russia’s special envoy to Afghanistan, who said there are more than 10,000 Daesh (Islamic State) fighters in Afghanistan, TOLOnews reported.
TCA
BISHKEK (TCA) — Kyrgyzstan will strengthen friendship and strategic partnership with Kazakhstan based on the principles of equality, mutual benefit and non-interference in internal affairs of each other, Kyrgyz President Sooronbai Jeenbekov told journalists after his talks with Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev in Astana on December 25.
Jeenbekov was on his first official visit in Kazakhstan as Kyrgyzstan’s president, after relations between the two neighboring countries have been under strain.
“Today we have signed historic documents — the Agreement on demarcation of the Kyrgyz-Kazakh border and Agreement on the regime at the Kyrgyz-Kazakh border. We have thus completed the legal delimitation of the state border between our countries. I am confident that it will help to turn the border between Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan into the gates of confidence, good neighborliness and mutually beneficial cooperation,” Jeenbekov said.
In his turn, President Nazarbayev said Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan are fraternal and allied states. “There are no issues on which we could not find a mutually acceptable solution,” he said.
Nazarbayev said that since his last meeting with President Jeenbekov in Minsk, much work has been done on cooperation in phytosanitary, veterinary, transport, tax and customs control. All disputable issues have been normalized and there is no longer a transport bottleneck at the Kyrgyz-Kazakh border.
Relations between the two countries soured after Jeenbekov’s predecessor Almazbek Atambaev accused Kazakhstan of interfering in the campaign for Kyrgyzstan’s October 15 presidential election.
On October 7, Atambaev accused Kazakh authorities of “meddling in Kyrgyzstan’s internal affairs” and of openly supporting Omurbek Babanov, the chief election rival of Atambaev’s favored successor Jeenbekov, who ended up winning the election.
Kazakhstan subsequently stepped up checks at the Kazakh-Kyrgyz border on October 10, causing long lines and slowing the movements of travelers and vehicles.
In a meeting in Minsk on November 30, Jeenbekov and Nazarbayev agreed to work out a plan to resolve the two-month bottleneck at the border between their countries.
Starting from December 4, all vehicles started passing the Kyrgyz-Kazakh border without delays, RFE/RL’s Kyrgyz Service reported.
Speaking to journalists yesterday, Nazarbayev also said that Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan should increase their annual trade turnover up to $1 billion by 2020.
TCA
BISHKEK (TCA) — The Ministry of Health of Kyrgyzstan and USAID’s Challenge TB project have started to enroll patients with drug-resistant forms of tuberculosis (TB) in new, more effective and shorter treatments nationwide. The new treatments are cheaper with fewer side effects than the previously-used standard treatment, the US Embassy in the Kyrgyz Republic reported.
TCA
DUSHANBE (TCA) — USAID/Central Asia Tajikistan Country Director Katherine Crawford, Deputy Speaker of Tajikistan’s Parliament Khayriniso Yusufi, and First Deputy Minister of Health and Social Protection of Population Saida Umarzoda last week gathered government officials, donor representatives, and other key stakeholders at a ceremony to celebrate and close the three-year project, Tajikistan Technical Support to Reduce Micronutrient Deficiencies. This project has been funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and implemented by the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN), the US Embassy in Dushanbe said.
