JULY 16 2017 (The Bulletin) — For Kazakhstan, July 2 marked both the Day of Diplomatic Service and also the 25th anniversary of the establishment of the country’s diplomatic corps. In 1992 Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev signed a decree setting up the service and another that enshrined a ‘multi-vector’ foreign policy.
Since then, Kazakhstan has built up diplomatic relations with 182 countries, including 57 embassies and 27 consulates abroad. It also hosts 69 embassies, 19 consulates and 27 international organisations representations.
Kazakhstan’s foreign policy can be roughly broken down into two.
Firstly, Astana has been quite successful in setting up multi-vector diplomacy, roughly defined as seeking to keep “friendly and mutually- beneficial relations with all states” while also pushing the country towards playing an “important role in world affairs”.
This is a pragmatic approach to international affairs, evidenced by the balancing between Russia and China, strong ties with the EU and the US, as well as with non-traditional partners such as South Korea, Singapore, Malaysia and Japan.
On the other hand, and somewhat less successfully, Kazakhstan has been actively engaging the international community for the past few years in order to boost its image as a modern and mature diplomatic player in world affairs. In January, Kazakhstan took a non-permanent seat at the UN Security Council for two years. Nuclear non-proliferation, the fight against terrorism, and Sino- Russian relations were erected as key priorities.
Kazakhstan also confirmed its intention to play an active role in the peace talks in Syria after hosting five rounds of negotiations since early 2017, although no breakthroughs have been reached yet. Furthermore, Astana is increasingly seeking international prestige and acknowledgment, as evidenced by Astana’s 2017 Expo and its bid to host the 2022 Winter Olympic Games.
Kazakhstan is actively seeking to boost its regional leadership and increasingly move away from its image of a post-Soviet country and that of a “Stan”. In 2014 it was even proposed to change the name of the country to “Kazakh Eli”, which means country of the Kazakhs in Kazakh. This idea has been abandoned, for now.
By Mathieu Boulegue, analyst specialising in the former Soviet Union for AESMA Group
ENDS
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(News report from Issue No. 336, published on July 16 2017)
