MOSCOW, July 1 (RIA Novosti) – British Prime Minister David Cameron signed a string of trade deals in Kazakhstan on Monday, during a groundbreaking but controversial visit to the resource-rich, ex-Soviet state that has been criticized for human rights abuses and political repression.
Cameron and Kazakhstan’s long-serving President Nursultan Nazarbayev signed a strategic partnership agreement and several business accords, in the first visit by a serving British Prime Minister to the country that occupies a huge swath of Central Asia, a region that gave birth to the Great Game, a period of political rivalry between the British Empire and czarist Russia.
Cameron pledged to double trade turnover by 2017 from last year’s $2.3 billion. Britain is already a major investor in Kazakhstan's booming oil sector.
At a news conference on Monday, Cameron said that the two nations already cooperate on issues ranging from promoting stability in Afghanistan with a military transit agreement to oil extraction and export.
The International Security Assistance Force, to which Britain is a major contributor, has been using a railway line across Kazakhstan to supply its troops in Afghanistan. Some of the troops and equipment there will be transported via the railroad during the planned 2014 withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Cameron said he was “impressed” by an oil plant he and Nazarbayev opened late on Sunday in the Caspian Sea town of Atyrau. The plant will process oil from the offshore Kashagan field, one of largest oil deposits discovered in recent decades, which holds up to 9 billion barrels of oil, according to energy company Eni.
Prior to his departure to Kazakhstan with a delegation of British businessmen, he said he would sign trade agreements worth $1.1 billion that will secure “jobs back home,” British media reported. British companies have considerable experience of offshore oil production gained from developing the North Sea fields.
Responding to calls from human rights groups to raise Kazakhstan’s poor human rights record, Cameron said “nothing is off the agenda, including human rights,” The Guardian quoted him as saying.
Amnesty International urged Cameron to address such human rights abuses as the gunning down of 12 protesters in the western town of Zhanaozen in 2011 following months of strikes by local oil workers. The violence was followed by shutdowns of independent news outlets that covered the protests and imprisonment of opposition figures that helped the protesters.
Nazarbayev, a former steel worker and Kazakhstan’s Communist Party leader since 1990, has ruled the nation of 16 million ever since its independence from the USSR, tightening his grip on power and eliminating political rivals.
Located between the oil-rich Caspian Sea and China, the nation has enjoyed a period of rapid economic growth based on natural resources exports. Moscow’s influence remains strong in Kazakhstan, where an overwhelming majority of the ethnically-diverse population still speaks Russian.
Cameron is not the first British politician to try and curry favor with Astana in recent years. Former Prime Minister Tony Blair signed a deal in 2011 with the Kazakhstan government, via his company Tony Blair Associates, to help promote Astana’s image overseas, The Daily Telegraph reported.
“We are very honoured and privileged to have such attention on the part of two prime ministers [towards] Kazakhstan – Tony Blair and David Cameron,” Kazakhstan’s Foreign Minister Erlan Idrissov said on Sunday, the Daily Mail reported. “We cherish and enjoy the support of developed countries on our part for development ... We are grateful that Mr. Tony Blair and his colleagues are providing invaluable advice.”
