KEY POINTS
- PM Shehbaz meets Kazakhstan’s Deputy PM and FM Murat Nurtleu in Islamabad.
- Both sides agree to strengthen trade, investment, connectivity, and people-to-people links.
- President Tokayev’s upcoming visit to Pakistan to yield major agreements.
- Ishaq Dar, cabinet ministers, and senior officials also attended the meeting.
ISLAMABAD: Kazakhstan’s Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Murat Nurtleu called on Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Tuesday in Islamabad and discussed bilateral relations. The Kazakh Deputy PM is on an official visit to Pakistan, leading a ministerial delegation.
Welcoming the Kazakh guest on his first visit to Pakistan, the Prime Minister conveyed his warm regards for President Kassym Jomart-Tokayev, whom he had recently met in China.
PM Sharif underlined the strong brotherly relations between Pakistan and Kazakhstan, adding that both countries shared a desire to further cooperation across multiple fields of mutual interest.
The Prime Minister expressed Pakistan’s keen interest in enhancing bilateral trade, investment, connectivity—through air, rail and road links—as well as people-to-people exchanges.
The Premier said Pakistan attached great importance to the upcoming visit of President Tokayev, and offered to dispatch a delegation to Astana to finalise various memoranda of understanding and agreements currently under discussion.
Both sides have been engaged in regular consultations over the past several months, with the expectation that important understandings and accords will be signed during President Tokayev’s visit to Islamabad later this year.
The Kazakh Deputy Prime Minister thanked Prime Minister Shehbaz for the warm hospitality and briefed him on his detailed earlier discussions with Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Senator Ishaq Dar.
He conveyed that President Tokayev’s forthcoming visit would be historic and would mark the beginning of a new chapter in Pakistan-Kazakhstan relations.
Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar, Minister for Communications Abdul Aleem Khan, Minister for Economic Affairs Ahad Khan Cheema, Minister for Railways Hanif Abbasi, Special Assistant to the Prime Minister Tariq Fatemi, and Foreign Secretary also attended the meeting.
