Kazakhs

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.

Russia, Turkey, and Iran will hold the next round of talks on Syria on Nov. 28-29 in the Kazakh capital Astana, Kazakh foreign minister Kairat Abdrakhmanov said on Nov. 19.

Turkish and Kazakh aviation firms signed a cooperation deal in the Kazakh capital Astana on May 24 during an international exhibition. 

Kazakh Foreign Minister Kairat Abdrakhmanov will pay an official visit to Turkey between April 18 and April 20, the Turkish Foreign Ministry announced in a statement.

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.

Kazakhstan president Nursultan Nazarbayev signed a decree to change the Cyrillic alphabet with the Latin alphabet, reports RIA Novosti.

This was the start for the third 100 years of linguistic reform.

Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev signed a decree to change the Kazakh language from Cyrillic to Latin, the head of state said today. "There is a Latin script on the alphabet of the Kazakh language," he says. The government has been planning to set up a commission to draw up a schedule for moving to Latin from 2025. Control will be exercised by the administration of the president.