KAZAKHSTAN: MFA PUBLICLY DENIES POLITICAL PROBLEMS WITH

UNCLAS ASTANA 000062 SENSITIVE SIPDIS STATE FOR SCA/CEN, S/SRAP, EUR/RUS, P/M E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: PGOV PREL MARR RS AF KZ SUBJECT: KAZAKHSTAN: MFA PUBLICLY DENIES POLITICAL PROBLEMS WITH EXPANDED OVERFLIGHT ¶1. (U) Sensitive but unclassified. Not for public Internet. ¶2. (SBU) SUMMARY: In response to Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov's statement to "Radio Free Europe" that Kazakhstan is delaying full implementation of the U.S.-Russia Transit Agreement, Kazakhstan's Foreign Ministry made public today the U.S. request to add an additional route to the existing overflight agreement. Interfax-Kazakhstan news wire printed comments by the MFA's spokesman, who said Kazakhstan has no political problem with the proposal and is simply working out the "technical details" of the proposal and preparing it for parliament's review. Full text of the article is below. END SUMMARY. ¶3. (SBU) Begin full text of article. Kazakhstan to provide an additional air corridor for U.S. to transport cargoes to Afghanistan Astana. January 21. Interfax-Kazakhstan -- The Kazakh Ministry of Foreign Affairs is developing an international agreement to allow the U.S. to transport military cargoes to Afghanistan through an additional air corridor of Kazakhstan. Kazakhstan has been supporting the Operation Enduring Freedom from the very beginning and opened an air corridor back in 2001 for U.S. cargo transportation to Afghanistan through Kazakhstan, Askar Abdrakhmanov, the official representative of the Kazakh Ministry for Foreign Affairs, told Interfax-Kazakhstan. "Now the talks are about Kazakhstan to provide an additional air corridor that will run from Russia to Afghanistan. The U.S. sent us a request last November asking to open this corridor," Mr. Abdrakhmanov said. Earlier the Russian foreign affairs minister, Sergei Lavrov, said that the U.S. could not transport their cargoes to Afghanistan as some technical issues had not been resolved with the Central Asian countries, Kazakhstan among them. "At the moment the Kazakh Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the concerned governmental agencies are drafting an international agreement which, when signed by the American side, will have to be ratified by the Kazakh parliament. Cargo transit through the additional air corridor will become possible after the mentioned procedures are completed," Mr. Abdrakhmanov explained. According to him, the U.S. initiated the same talks with Russia much earlier than with Kazakhstan and, consequently, the talks were finished earlier too. "There are no political aspects involved here. It is a purely technical issue as the Russian foreign minister said before," Mr. Abdrakhmanov stressed. Russia and the U.S. signed the agreement on military transit through Russia to Afghanistan in Moscow last year. HOAGLAND