United States Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will travel to the Central Asian countries of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan on January 5 for a two-day visit, the Kazakh and Uzbek ministries of foreign announced in press releases on Monday
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 30th December, 2019) United States Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will travel to the Central Asian countries of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan on January 5 for a two-day visit, the Kazakh and Uzbek ministries of foreign announced in press releases on Monday."On January 5 2020, US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo is scheduled to visit Nur-Sultan," the Kazakh Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced.
According to the release, Pompeo will meet with the country's leadership and hold talks with Kazakh Foreign Minister Mukhtar Tleuberdi on bilateral and regional issues. On December 13, Tleuberdi and US Under Secretary of State Nathan Sales met in Washington. The US State Department praised Kazakhstan's efforts to repatriate its nationals who joined the Islamic State terror group (banned in Russia).
In a separate press release, the Uzbek Ministry of Foreign Affairs also announced that Pompeo will arrive in Tashkent on the same day for bilateral talks with Foreign Minister Abdulaziz Kamilov, after being received by Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev.
"The program of the visit provides for bilateral negotiations at the MFA of Uzbekistan, at the negotiations it is planned to discuss the implementation of the agreements reached at the Uzbek-American high level meeting on May 16, 2018 in Washington, and other topical issues on the mutual agenda, as well as exchange views on international problem," the press release read.
After bilateral talks, Pompeo will also participate in a summit of C5+1 countries to be held on January 6. The C5+1 format sees the foreign ministers from the United States and five Central Asian countries discuss common challenges.
In November, Amir Sultanov, second secretary at the Uzbek Embassy in Washington, told Sputnik that the US and Uzbekistan have agreed on more than $5 billion of investments in the Uzbek economy over the last two years, and mutual trade between the two countries is expected to reach $1 billion by 2021-2022.
The C5+1 format is composed of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and the United States. The first ministerial meeting was held in the Uzbek city of Samarkand in November of that year.
