Nazarbayev Says Soros Personally Talked Him Out Of Closing His Foundation In Kazakhstan

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 16th July, 2021) Kazakhstan's first president, Nursultan Nazarbayev, has said that US billionaire George Soros personally dissuaded him from closing the office of his foundation in the country.

Nazarbayev talked about the first years of Kazakhstan's independence in the new feature documentary "Qazaq: History of the Golden Man" by American film director Oliver Stone.

The ex-president noted that just after Kazakhstan gained independence, the country's institutions were weak and there were a lot of Western NGOs operating on its territory. One of them was the Soros Foundation, which Nazarbayev decided to close. According to Kazakhstan's former leader, Soros once followed him around in Switzerland's Davos, the site of the World Economic Forum, asking why it was closed.

Nazarbayev recalled that when the first office of the Soros Foundation opened in Kazakhstan, he was curious what the organization was planning to do in the country.

Its leadership explained that they would focus on charity, "teaching" people. Nazarbayev said he had inquired if they would teach people how to work against the government.

Currently, there are still organizations working to the same goal ” to destabilize the country, Kazakhstan's first president remarked. Though, he said, he did not see the reason for it, as Kazakhstan is no longer communist and is a friendly country ready to build strong relations with the West.

The full eight-episode version of the documentary will be screened at the Rome Film Festival in the fall.

Soros Kazakhstan Foundation has been operating in the country since 1995. In 2004, the Kazakh anti-corruption agency opened a criminal case against the fund for tax evasion, though the case was dropped in 2005. Over the years, the organization has allocated about $100 million in grants for its programs.