Ahead of President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev’s visit to the United States for the 74-th UN General Assembly, Foreign Minister of Kazakhstan Mukhtar Tileuberdi took part at the C5+1 Dialogue meeting. The participants of the Dialogue also included the US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Foreign Minister of Kyrgyzstan Chingiz Aidarbekov, Foreign Minister of Tajikistan Sirojiddin Muhriddin, Foreign Minister of Uzbekistan Abdulaziz Kamilov and Ambassador of Turkmenistan to the United States Mered Orazov.

The parties discussed ways to expand trade and investment ties as well as integration processes and joint efforts to address common challenges in Central Asia.

Foreign Minister Mukhtar Tileuberdi emphasized that C5+1 platform is increasingly becoming an effective mechanism to boost economic cooperation within Central Asia and attract the US resources to develop the region’s transit infrastructure, protect the environment as well as strengthen the regional security and stability.

The Minister also highlighted the importance of continuing the work within the C5+1 dialogue to attract American investments and technologies to Central Asia. The progress made within the C5+1 Dialogue platform should be signalled to the business communities of the US and Central Asia.

The U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo noted that Central Asia serves as an example to the international community on repatriating its citizens from war zones. The U.S State Secretary highlighted the importance of economic partnership of the Central Asian countries and noted the prospects of the US cooperation with the region in infrastructure development, including through the United States International Development Finance Corporation.

As one of the factors to establish stability and sustainable growth in the region Mike Pompeo noted the need to strengthen cooperation between Central Asian countries and Afghanistan.

The C5 format is a multilateral mechanism for interaction between the five Central Asian countries and the United States. The inaugural meeting of the six foreign ministers took place in New York in September 2015 in the margins of the UN General Assembly.

The last high level meeting with participation of Central Asian foreign ministers and US Under Secretary of State David Hale took place in Nur-Sultan a month ago.