Central Asia

Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymuhamedov will pay official visit to Uzbekistan and Iran.

The chairman of the National Bank, Grigory Marchenko, at the selector government session said that he expects increase of sale of dollars in the market of currencies in Kazakhstan, the agency reports.

“I hope Russia will help convince the President of Kyrgyzstan of not liquidating the America’s Manas airbase,” the NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer told in an interview with Echo of Moscow.

A delegation of Uzbektelecom, national telecommunication operator of Uzbekistan, held negotiations with a delegation of Russian long-distance and international communication operator Interregional TransitTelecom (MTT) led by its director-general Victor Bertyakov.

Statelessness and UNHCR’s mandate was the topic of the seminar conducted in the Turkmen capital.

The European Union expresses hope that Kyrgyzstan will continue cooperation in stabilization and reconstruction of Afghanistan, Mr. Cristina Gallach, Spokesperson for Javier Solana, EU High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy told.

On Wednesday the National Bank of Kazakhstan devalued national currency by 25% - up to 150 tenge for 1 U.S. dollar from 120 tenge, said Grigory Marchenko, the Head of the National Bank at the press conference.

Uzbekistan cotton export in 2009 can decrease by 40% comparing with the average indexes of last years, reported RIA Novosti citing press-release of International Cotton Advisory Committee.

Muhammet Abalakov, Turkmenistan's Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Ambassador to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, has been appointed concurrently Turkmenistan's permanent representative to the Organization of Islamic Conference.

“The Kyrgyz government took the decision to bring to a close the airbase of antiterrorist coalition,” the President Kurmanbek Bakiev told the press conference in Moscow on Tuesday February 3, while being on a working trip to the Russian capital.