Kazakhstan, South Korea leaders adopt joint statement following talks

    President Nursultan Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan and his South Korean counterpart, Park Geun-hye met on Thursday in Seoul to discuss cooperation issues, a press statement from the Kazakh president said.
    The two presidents adopted a Joint Declaration to Further Deepen the Strategic Partnership between Kazakhstan and Japan after their meeting that also resulted in signing of the Joint Action Plan between the Ministry for Investments and Development of Kazakhstan and the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Energy of South Korea.
    In Seoul, the Ministry for Investments and Development of Kazakhstan has also signed a memorandum with the Ministry of Transport, Land and Infrastructure of Korea to support the investment and innovative projects in the field of transport.
    "The two sides strongly urged North Korea to abandon all activities of its nuclear program in a complete, verifiable and irreversible manner in line with UN Security Council resolutions, and to immediately halt provocations," Yonhap News agency cited the joint statement.
    The statement also noted that the two sides shared the understanding that Pyongyang's "extremely irresponsible" acts have negatively affected the international nonproliferation regime, posed a serious threat to peace and security in the region and the world, and undermined the world's efforts to secure a future without nuclear arms.
    Nazarbayev and Park Geun-hye also discussed implementation of agreements reached during the state visit of the President of South Korea to Astana in June, 2014.
    The two defined directions for further boosting of bilateral ties and bilateral trade, and agreed to continue to working on bringing the Kazakh-Korean strategic partnership to a new level, Akipress reports.