TASHKENT (TCA) — Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev will make his first foreign trip as Uzbekistan’s president to Kazakhstan. The exact date of the visit has not yet been determined but it is planned for March, Podrobno.uz news agency reports.
“We are currently preparing for the upcoming visit of the President of Uzbekistan to Kazakhstan, which will take place in the nearest future,” the agency quoted Uzbekistan First Deputy Prime Minister Achilbai Ramatov as saying at the 16th meeting of the Kazakh-Uzbek intergovernmental commission for cooperation on February 23. “I would like to emphasize that it will be the first [foreign] visit of the newly-elected president of Uzbekistan to Kazakhstan. It will open a new chapter in the strategic partnership between our countries.”
Russia’s Nezavisimaya Gazeta newspaper earlier reported that Mirziyoyev may first meet with his Turkmen counterpart, Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov, in Turkmenistan.
There was much speculation as to what country will Mirziyoyev choose for his first foreign visit as the Uzbek president. Mirziyoyev has received invitations to visit Kazakhstan, Russia, Belarus, and China from those countries’ leaders, Nezavisimaya Gazeta reported.
The newspaper reported citing its sources that Mirziyoyev’s visit to Astana is likely to take place after the Navruz holiday marked on March 21-22, with his next visits being to Moscow and Beijing.
For Tashkent, it is important to intensify the dialogue with next-door neighbors, Sadyk Safayev, deputy chairman of the Senate of the Uzbek Parliament, told Nezavisimaya Gazeta. “None of the region’s countries is able to solve its problems alone. Such are the existing realities of Central Asia. This refers to the problem of water resources, border issues, and even stabilization of the situation in Afghanistan,” he said.
