Central Asian economic summit opens in Almaty

The Central Asian Economic Cooperation Summit opened in Almaty on Friday, bringing together four former Soviet Central Asian states for a one day summit on regional cooperation. Kazakh officials in Islamabad told IRIN on Friday the main areas of discussion included cooperative efforts in the field of power engineering, communication, gas and oil, and the establishment of a free trade zone. The current security situation in Afghanistan would also be discussed. The Central Asian presidents attending the summit were Kazakhstan’s Nursultan Nazarbayev, Uzbekistan’s Islam Karimov, Tajikistan’s Emomali Rakhmonov and Krygyzstan’s Askar Akayev. Turkmenistan’s Saparmurat Niyazov was not in attendance.