The US and Kazakhstan appear tohave reached agreement over illegal MiG-21 exports

Published: 11/29/1999

The US and Kazakhstan may have come to some agreement about how the country should deal with the outstanding business relating to the `illegal" export of 40 MiG-21s to North Korea. Commenting ahead of December"s visit to the US by Kazak President, Nursultan Nazarbayev, Foreign Minister, Yerlan Idrisov, admitted that Kazakhstan had to tighten its supervision in this area to prevent further `accidents". The US has applied sanctions against the companies involved in the deal, namely Uralsk Metal and Czech company Agroplast, but has left Kazakhstan"s $14m of US aid untouched. This suggests that there is an acceptance by the US that the deal was not approved at the highest level of the country"s government, so removing the potential threat to current and future US investment in the country"s oil and gas industry. The Kazak"s say they have now completed their investigation of the exports, which emerged after an aircraft carrying the fighters was seized in Baku, and are now preparing for trial. The head of country"s armed forces, Bakhytzhan Yertayev, is rumoured to be involved in the criminal case, as are a number of other senior military figures in Kazakhstan.

Article ID: 1139