Russian President Putin and his Kazakh counterpart met on Thursday. Tokayev’s speech left room for interpretation.
Astana – Kazakhstan is traditionally considered a close ally of Russia, but is currently pursuing a kind of see-saw policy. On the one hand, Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev supports the EU sanctions against Moscow, but is also presumably helping to circumvent these import restrictions. At the meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday (November 9th), a statement from the Kazakh head of government caused a stir – and left room for interpretation.
Meeting between Putin and Tokayev: Prime Minister begins speech in Kazakh
The relationship between Russia and Kazakhstan has many facets. Recently Tokayev had behaved cautiously Ukraine war expressed and pointed out the importance of the “territorial integrity of all states”. While Astana officially supports Western sanctions, Kazakhstan is reportedly sending household appliances to Russia on a large scale. The trick: Electrical devices such as washing machines or breast pumps contain the EU-sanctioned semiconductors that Russia urgently needs for weapons production.
But Kazakhstan has also recently expanded its relations with Europe. At a meeting between Tokayev and Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) in September, the two countries emphasized their good and cooperative cooperation. “Kazakhstan is an important partner for us in expanding our supply routes, for example when importing crude oil, in order to make us more independent of Russian energy supplies,” said the Chancellor at the time. The Kazakhs have long feared Russian territorial claims to the north of their country. Back in 2013, Vladimir Putin sparked controversy when he claimed that “Kazakhstan never had sovereignty.”
Tokayev’s speech during Putin’s recent visit should also be seen against this background. In his speech to the Russian delegation, the head of government of the former Soviet republic initially decided to speak Kazakh instead of Russian. This is noteworthy because words and symbols often carry a different weight in the diplomatic arena. As a video shared on the X platform (formerly Twitter) shows, the invited guests apparently did not expect this. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, Kremlin chief Putin and the others tried to find the headphones for simultaneous translation as quickly as possible. Shortly afterwards, Tokayev switched back to Russian.
What Tokayev’s speech in Kazakh says – and what it doesn’t – about the relationship with Russia
Russian is also the official language in Kazakhstan, as Russians are the largest minority in the country at around 20 percent. In his speeches to the nations, Tokayev often addresses his people in both languages. It would have been easy for the head of government, who is supposed to speak a total of five languages, to accommodate his visit. Until now, Russian had generally been spoken at such meetings. It is at least doubtful that the choice of language was pure coincidence. Especially since Tokayev is considered to be diplomatically skilled: After attending an elite school, he graduated from the Moscow Institute of International Relations diplomatic school and, among other things, worked as a diplomat in China before his role as president.
The video of the speech went viral on social media and invited many to interpret it. Tokayev’s decision to address the Russian guests in his native language was seen as a “provocation” towards the Kremlin boss. Others saw it as a reaction to the fact that the Russian president appears to have difficulty pronouncing the Kazakh leader’s name correctly. The advisor to the Ukrainian Interior Minister, Anton Gerashchenko, had previously shared a corresponding video. Gerashchenko suspects that it could be a matter of a lack of respect for Tokayev. However the incident can be interpreted, it is not fact. Kazakhstan’s attitude towards Russia is reflected in economic and military cooperation.
Kazakhstan and Russia appear to be strengthening military and military-technical cooperation
Oil-rich Kazakhstan had recently become increasingly important for Russia because of Western sanctions. Russia may now also be trying to deliver gas to Iran via Kazakhstan, according to US war experts at the think tank Institute for the Study of War in their daily report. On the other hand, Kazakhstan also needs Russia, for example as a transit country to send oil to Europe. Political observers therefore sometimes saw the offer of oil and gas deliveries from Kazakhstan to the EU as a “Trojan horse”.
However, the incident remained uncommented from the Russian side at the recent meeting between Tokayev and Putin. The meeting between the two statesmen was a success, one said Announcement from the Russian state news agency Tass on Friday. Kremlin chief Putin explained that it was about “strengthening military and military-technical cooperation” between the two neighboring countries. Putin and Tokayev will meet again in the Belarusian capital Minsk on November 23rd. Then at a summit of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), a military alliance of post-Soviet states.
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