Kazakhstan not going to join NATO – official

Interfax-Kazakhstan news agency
23 Apr 04

Almaty, 23 April: Kazakhstan is not going to join NATO, the alliance’s
deputy secretary-general, Jean Fournet, has said.

“Kazakhstan’s joining NATO is not on the agenda today,” he said at a
news conference in Almaty on 23 April.

Fournet stressed that Kazakhstan’s participation in the alliance’s
programmes is “very important”, “but this doesn’t mean that Kazakhstan
is applying for official membership of NATO”.

Under many circumstances, “it is rather more important for the country
to be a full participant” of partnership programmes than to be a NATO
member. “This is linked with the regional policy, the policy of
neighbouring states,” Fournet said.

He also noted that NATO is not competing with the CSTO Collective
Security Treaty Organization; members are Armenia, Belarus,
Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Russia and the SCO Shanghai
Cooperation Organization; members are China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan,
Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Russia in Central Asia.

“Competition is not the role of the multinational organization NATO
. We are all interested in ensuring better security in the region, and
NATO aims at cooperating in and developing the dialogue with these
organizations,” the NATO representative said.