By IINA
Astana, Kazakshstan : India and Kazakhstan yesterday agreed to move their cooperation from generalities to “project specific” agenda even as Kazakh President Nurusultan Nazarbayev told the visiting Vice-President of India Hamid Ansari that his country hoped to double the export of its oil from 50 million tons annually to 100 million tons over the next 10 years. India hopes to enlist Kazakhstan as a source of crude oil imports. Ansari had a 40-minute meeting with Nazarbayev at the magnificent Presidential Palace. Ansari was accompanied by Minister of State for External Affairs E. Ahmed and senior officials.
The meeting was described by an Indian official as “one marked by warmth.” It was felt by both leaders that India and Kazakhstan have talked too long in general terms, and that the time had come to talk of a “project-specific” agenda and cooperation in areas such as hydrocarbon, textile, information technology and education. The Kazakh side has a better appreciation of India’s search for energy and food security, the Indian officials felt after the Ansari-Nazarbayev interaction. Nazarbayev recalled the traditional cultural affinities between the two nations, dating back to the Silk Route era. He also wanted New Delhi and Astana to address the issue of improving “direct surface transport access” between the two countries.
During the discussion on the “troubled spots in the neighborhood,” the need for joint efforts against terrorism and drug trafficking was stressed. The Kazakh President suggested that India and China would be the new “drivers” of the global order.
Ansari renewed New Delhi’s standing invitation to Mr. Nazarbayev to visit India. Earlier in the day, in an address at the prestigious Academy of Public Administration, gave the senior Kazakh administrators and intellectuals an idea of India’s constitutional architecture. Ansari arrived here on the second leg of a seven-day tour that already took him to Turkmenistan where he met with President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov. Their talks focused on the entire gamut of bilateral relations, regional matters and international issues of mutual concern.