Astana: As part of the diversification of Burkina Faso’s partners and partnerships, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Regional Cooperation and Burkinabe Abroad is on a friendship and working visit to the Republic of Kazakhstan. On the morning of June 3, HE Karamoko Jean Marie TRAORE had a working session with the Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Kazakhstan, HE Murat NURTLEU.
According to Burkina Information Agency, this framework for exchanges, which responds to a shared need for strengthening cooperation between Burkina Faso and Kazakhstan, allowed the two personalities to explore areas of cooperation that would be mutually beneficial for the Burkinabe and Kazakh peoples. These include trade, economy, agriculture, livestock, transport, health, and defense industry, not to mention culture, higher education, and media, in order to enable the people of the two countries to know each other better and enrich each other.
Based on the areas of cooperation, the two ministers stressed the need to proceed in the near future to the signing of a Framework Cooperation Agreement which will establish the overall scope of the partnership between Burkina Faso and Kazakhstan. And to lay the foundations for this cooperation, which is gaining new momentum, the ministers responsible for foreign affairs of the two countries signed a Memorandum of Understanding on bilateral consultations.
“This document is an instrument that now organizes relations between the Ministries of Foreign Affairs of the two countries, and which sets out the principles of exchanges that will be established between the two departments and which will allow us to organize future work with other sectoral departments,” explains HE Karamoko Jean Marie TRAORE.
HE Murat NURTLEU welcomed this friendly and working visit of the Head of Burkinabe diplomacy to Astana, indicating that his country is in a process of opening up to African countries with a particular interest in Burkina Faso. This is an approach that the Burkinabe Minister of Foreign Affairs welcomes and hopes to see the establishment of a resident Kazakhstan embassy in Ouagadougou, as well as visa exemptions between the two countries, in order to create conditions for trade and rapprochement between the two peoples.
He conveyed to the Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Kazakhstan, the greetings of the President of Faso, His Excellency Captain Ibrahim TRAORE, to President Kassym-Jomart TOKAEV. The two ministers parted with congratulations and expressed the belief that this meeting is a solid foundation for a lasting relationship between Burkina Faso and the Republic of Kazakhstan, a Central Asian country that shares borders with five other countries, including the People’s Republic of China and the Russian Federation. This country is the leading producer of uranium with more than 40% of global production and is one of the largest producers of cereals in the world.