France secures $6 billion in contracts with Kazakhstan
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France and Kazakhstan have signed energy and business deals worth $6 billion during a visit to Astana by French President Nicolas Sarkozy.
Kazakhstan also agreed to allow French military supplies to pass through on their way to Afghanistan…
The biggest deal was signed between Total and GDF Suez and Kazakh state energy firm Kazmunaigaz to develop the Khvalynskoye Caspian Sea gas field…
The business deals come despite criticisms from rights groups that Kazakhstan flouts basic democratic rights.
Despite the criticism of its rights record, Kazakhstan is set to become the first former Soviet republic to chair the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe – an intergovernmental trans-Atlantic security and democracy body.
Mr Sarkozy gave his backing to Kazakhstan’s chairmanship, saying “it is a choice for peace”.
He said he had raised his concerns over human rights in Kazakhstan with Mr Nazarbayev…
“The best way to resolve problems, and there are problems and I have talked to the president, is not necessarily to come and give lessons,” said Mr Sarkozy in a news conference with Mr Nazarbayev.
Over a half-century of political activism, the sort of “help” I received from single-issue activists on any particular issue – sometimes brought as many problems as solutions. That never meant they weren’t welcome. They simply required as much negotiation as dealing with the “opposition”. Sometimes.
Try to stop a war with only the aid of pacifists. Try to stop the same war by telling people fighting for liberation from a foreign power – they should cease. Try to tell an elected official he should attend to questions raised by activists who reject electoral politics. And on and on.
I guess that’s why diplomacy offends probably as many people as it may apparently benefit. At least at the beginning.
