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Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev signed a strategic partnership agreement with Uzbek counterpart Islam Karimov during a visit to Tashkent, Uzbekistan, in 2013.
The document defines cooperation regarding politics, trade, economics, culture and transportation between the two Central Asian countries.
After the talks, Nazarbayev described Uzbekistan as having deeply rooted cultural and historic traditions that influence cultural developments in the region as a whole. The Kazakh leader added that Central Asia’s regional security “greatly depends on cooperation between the two countries.”
Karimov and Nazarbayev have long been viewed as competitors for a leadership role in Central Asia.
In the past, relations between the two countries were marred by border dispute and the closure of the Kazakh Cultural Center in the Uzbek capital in 2008.