Japan and Kazakhstan have agreed to cooperate to hold a summit in the Central Asia-Japan format next year. This was announced by the Japanese Foreign Ministry following the meeting of the head of the department Yoko Kamikawa with Deputy Prime Minister - Minister of Foreign Affairs of Kazakhstan Murat Nurtleu on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.

"The parties agreed that it makes sense to hold a summit of the Central Asia-Japan Dialogue at an appropriate time next year, and confirmed that Kazakhstan, the current chairman of this Dialogue, and Japan will cooperate to coordinate with other countries of the format," the ministry said.

Japan has recently been paying great attention to the development of relations with the countries of Central Asia - Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.

In December 2022, a meeting of the foreign Ministers of Central Asian countries and Japan was held in Tokyo.

At the same time, during the 14th meeting of the joint committee on economic cooperation of Turkmenistan and Japan, a solid package of documents was signed between the state departments of Turkmenistan and Japanese companies in the field of chemical industry, gas industry, transport and water management

In June 2023, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida announced that he would instruct the country's foreign ministry to work out the launch of a format of high- level meetings with the heads of state of Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. Regular high-level meetings between Japan and the Central Asian countries were scheduled to begin in 2024.

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