Ethnic groups in Kazakhstan

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo urged Kazakhstan on Feb. 2 to join Washington in pressing Beijing over its treatment of Muslim minorities, a sensitive matter for the Central Asian nation which has close ties with its neighbor China.

Speaking on a visit to the capital Nur-Sultan, Pompeo said he has raised the matter in talks with Kazakh Foreign Minister Mukhtar Tleuberdi.

Kazakhstan further loosened cultural ties with its former political masters in Moscow yesterday when a ban on speaking Russian in cabinet meetings took effect - despite many ministers favouring that language over their native Kazakh.