US Ready To Cooperate With Acting Kazakhstan President, Salutes Nazarbayev - State Dept.

Mohammad Ali (@ChaudhryMAli88) Published March 21, 2019 | 06:29 PM

The United States is ready to cooperate with Kazakhstan's acting President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev and aslutes his predecessor Nursultan Nazarbayev, State Department spokesperson Robert Palladino said in a statement on Thursday

WASHINGTON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 21st March, 2019) The United States is ready to cooperate with Kazakhstan's acting President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev and aslutes his predecessor Nursultan Nazarbayev, State Department spokesperson Robert Palladino said in a statement on Thursday.

"We congratulate Kazakhstan's new interim President. .. and look forward to continue working with him to deepen our enhanced strategic partnership and advance our longstanding mutual interests in economic development, trade and investment, and safeguarding regional and global security," Palladino said.

Tokayev, who was the Kazakh Senate speaker, assumed the post of the country's acting president on Wednesday after Nazarbayev announced his resignation a day prior.

Palladino underscored his country's gratitude for Nazarbayev's efforts to establish and promote a dynamic relationship between the United States and Kazakhstan.

"At this historic moment in Kazakhstan, we salute Nazarbayev's role as the father of today's modern, sovereign, and prosperous Kazakhstan, and acknowledge the example he sets for responsible regional and global leadership," the State Department spokesperson said.

He also noted what he called Nazarbayev's "significant efforts" in the areas of nonproliferation and denuclearization.

Nazarbayev, 78, held a number of senior posts in the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Nazarbayev remained in power, becoming president of the independent Republic of Kazakhstan. He was the last leader of a post-Soviet state heading his country since the Soviet era.

Tokayev, 65, previously held positions of the country's foreign minister and prime minister, as well as UN under secretary-general and director-general of the UN Office in Geneva.