Kazakh envoy for direct flights between Pakistan, Kazakhstan

ISLAMABAD: Kazakh Ambassador to Pakistan Yerzhan Kistafin on Saturday proposed direct flights between Pakistan and Kazakhstan to enhance business, academic and cultural cooperation between the two countries. In an exclusive interview with News and Current Affairs Channel of Radio Pakistan, the envoy said Pakistan and Kazakhstan have been enjoying exemplary diplomatic relations which could be extended to new areas of cooperation. Both the countries were striving to enhance cooperation in diverse sectors that would help achieving regional connectivity, he added. He said both the states had robust political dialogue that also needed to reflect in bilateral trade and commercial ties. The ambassador said the last session of Pakistan-Kazakh Intergovernmental Commission was held in Islamabad in February last year in which it was agreed to establish three working groups on economic cooperation, energy cooperation and cooperation in regional connectivity. He underlined the need to focus on their transport and logistics issues as well as economic cooperation. State agencies of both countries should work together to address issues and challenges in the bilateral economic cooperation, he added. Yerzhan Kistafin said he had held fruitful meetings with representatives of Pakistani business community including those of FPCCI to explore the potential of increasing bilateral trade. Referring to situation in Afghanistan, the Kazakh ambassador said Kazakhstan was the biggest landlocked country’s in the world and they understood the importance of regional connectivity. He said Afghanistan could be the most beneficial country if trade increased between Pakistan and Kazakhstan. He said Afghanistan could serve as a regional transit hub between Central and South Asia if peace and stability came in the country. Elaborating further, the ambassador said special representative of Kazakhstan visited Kabul recently and held talks with current government in Afghanistan. He said Kazakhstan discussed restoring trade and economic cooperation with Afghanistan for the mutual benefit of both the countries. On trade between Kazakhstan and Pakistan, Yerzhan Kistafin said bilateral trade volume stood at 45 million dollars last year. He said there was a need to establish cooperation between custom services of both Pakistan and Kazakhstan to remove hiccups in trade. The Kazakh ambassador said apart from Afghanistan there were also other routes for trade between the two countries. He said Karakorum Highway was the shortest route to Central Asia from Pakistan, but due to harsh climate in winter it was impractical to use. Another option, he said, was the route of Khunjerab Pass through which trade supplies could reach to Western parts of Kazakhstan.