Integration most effective way to fight terrorism – Kazakh president
Interfax-Kazakhstan news agency, Almaty
18 Jun 04
Astana, 18 June: Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev thinks that
integration is the most effective way to fight against new threats.
“I am deeply convinced that the further strengthening and broadening
of integration cooperation is the most effective way to fight against
new threats,” he said speaking at an international forum entitled
“Eurasian integration: tendencies of modern development and challenges
of globalization” in Astana today.
Nazarbayev referred to extremism, terrorism and consequences of
globalization as new threats.
The Kazakh president noted “time had shown that the idea of setting
up a Eurasian union was vital and of great demand”, which he himself
had put forward 10 years ago.
“It has not remained only a theoretical postulate but was really
carried out in practice,” he said.
Nazarbayev sees great possibilities in this initiative for the social
and economic modernization of Former Soviet Union countries and their
limited entry to the system of world economic relations.
The Kazakh president noted “the fruitful operation” of the EAEC
[the Eurasian Economic Community of Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan,
Russia and Tajikistan – the former Customs Union] and the Collective
Security Treaty Organization [CSTO]. He also rated positively the
process of the setting up a Single Economic Space.
“I am confident that the further development of integration
associations between our countries will be successful,” Nazarbayev
said.
“A constructive cooperation in the framework of our integration
structures should help to attract other countries of the Eurasian
space to the number of their [integration organizations] members. And
this, first of all, will be a serious basis for the strengthening of
influence of Eurasian integration on the regional, continental and
global scales,” he said.
At the same time, Nazarbayev hopes that the forum devoted to Eurasian
integration “will help to understand and fairly assess achievements
and determine further prospects of integration processes in the former
Soviet Union space”.
In this connection, the president called on the scientific community
“to make maximum efforts to determine the further strategy, its
stages, modern mechanisms and instruments in order to implement our
common idea”.
Nazarbayev thinks that the Former Soviet Union countries “need
a new ideology to develop the society based not only on economic
pragmatism but on common unique, historical and cultural roots,
and close cooperation between our peoples”.
The forum was attended by the Russian, Belarusian, Armenian, Tajik
and Kyrgyz presidents, who are currently in Astana.