Kazakhstan President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, who has shut historic ties with Russia, declined Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko‘s provide of nuclear weapons for nations prepared “to hitch the Union State of Russia and Belarus.”

What Occurred: Kazakhstan, which has refused to acknowledge Vladimir Putin’s annexation of elements of Ukraine, dismissed Lukashenko’s invitation to hitch the Minsk-Moscow union.

“I appreciated his joke,” Tokayev’s workplace quoted him as saying on Telegram, reported Reuters.

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The presidential workplace mentioned that Kazakhstan was already a member of a broader Moscow-led commerce bloc, the Eurasian Financial Union, and thinks no additional integration was mandatory.

“As for nuclear weapons, we don’t want them as a result of now we have joined the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and Complete Nuclear-Take a look at-Ban Treaty,” he mentioned.

“We stay dedicated to our obligations beneath these worldwide paperwork.”

The feedback have been prompted by Putin ally Lukashenko’s controversial statements made throughout an interview with Russian state-owned media. “Nobody minds Kazakhstan and different nations having the identical shut relations that now we have with the Russian Federation.”

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“It’s quite simple,” Lukashenko mentioned, including, “Be a part of the Union State of Belarus and Russia. That’s all: there shall be nuclear weapons for everybody.”

Why It Issues: Russia and Kazakhstan share an extended historical past of shut ties and cooperation. For the reason that collapse of the Soviet Union, Astana has been one in all Russia’s closest and most dependable allies within the post-Soviet area.

Nonetheless, it declined to acknowledge the annexation of Ukraine’s japanese areas by Putin by means of referendums held there. “Kazakhstan proceeds from the ideas of territorial integrity of states, their sovereign equivalence and peaceable coexistence,” it mentioned.

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