AKIPRESS.COM - Foreign Minister of Kazakhstan Erlan Idrissov yesterday has met with Foreign Minister of Saudi Arabia Adel al-Jubeir who came to Astana on official visit, the press service of the Kazakh Foreign Ministry said Thursday in a release.

Mr. Idrissov said that the historic visit of Adel al-Jubeir to Astana was aimed to give a new impetus to the bilateral relations.

“This is the first official visit of the Foreign Minister of Saudi Arabia to Kazakhstan since the establishment of diplomatic relations between our countries. We attach great importance to the development of cooperation with friendly Saudi Arabia and are ready to deepen the political dialogue at all levels," Idrissov said.

The negotiating sides were engaged with interest into the discussion of bilateral cooperation development. The sides agreed to use the existing significant capacity to enhance partnership in such areas as trade and investments, agriculture, peaceful use of nuclear energy, petrochemistry, defense and implementation of infrastructural projects.

The Foreign Minister of Saudi Arabia expressed willingness to build cooperation in all areas and confirmed its support for Kazakhstan as a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council and participation of the country in EXPO 2017 in Astana.

As for cooperation in multilateral platforms, the sides agreed to strengthen ties within the UN, Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, Islamic Organisation for Food Security, etc., as well as noted their solidarity with efforts of the international community on the fight against terrorism and extremism.

The Foreign Ministers also discussed substantially the preparations to the visit of President Nursultan Nazarbayev to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia planned for this fall.

Upon the negotiations, they signed a Memorandum of Understanding on Political Consultations between the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Kazakhstan and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.