U.S. envoy to OSCE says Kazakhstan lagging in reforms

politics

U.S. envoy to OSCE says Kazakhstan lagging in reforms

By SRI ⋅ June 27, 2008 ⋅

The deputy chief of the U.S. mission to the OSCE, Kyle Scott, has told RFE/RL’s Kazakh Service after his arrival for the assembly meeting that there are lingering concerns over the implementation of those reforms.

Scott is in Kazakhstan ahead of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s (OSCE) meeting next week in Astana, Kazakhstan, an event that will mark the first time the OSCE’s assembly has convened in Central Asia.

Kazakhstan was chosen last year to assume the OSCE’s rotating chairmanship in 2010 — a prestige that critics said was inappropriate given the country’s rights and democracy record — after Astana agreed to make democratic reforms.

At the same meeting, in Madrid in November, Kazakhstan was chosen as a venue for this parliamentary session.

Opponents of the chairmanship bid argued that Kazakhstan had not demonstrated that it was ready to fulfill the duties with which an OSCE country is tasked.

Critics noted that Kazakhstan’s parliamentary elections in August 2007 resulted in a total victory for the pro-presidential Nur-Otan party, which took every one of the 98 seats available; that independent media in the country continue to be harassed and intimidated; and that restrictive laws have kept opposition political and social groups on a tight leash.

“The commitments that were undertaken by Kazakhstan at that ministerial [conference in Madrid] were very important for the other members of the organization in order to gain the decision for Kazakhstan to become president of the OSCE in 2010,” Scott told RFE/RL in Almaty. “We look forward to those commitments being fulfilled, and I will be holding discussions while I am here with members of the government to hear about their progress in this direction.”

Scott stressed that there still are concerns about the Kazakh government’s commitment to reforms but said he is hopeful that it will make improvements this year.

(Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty)