Interest of Kazakhstan to the huge region united by Pacific ocean and including Northeast and Southeast Asia, Australia, New Zealand, all Oceania, Russia, the United States of America and Canada, has sharply increased both in political, and in economic areas. The region is a crossroad for the diverse interests of such great powers as the United States, he People’s Republic of China, the Russian Federation, India and Japan. The power balance in the Asia Pacific has great influence not only on the international community, but equally on our country.

The prophetical words of James Hayes «Mediterranean sea is the sea of the past, Atlantic — the sea of the present. Pacific ocean — the sea of the future» today have got a significant urgency. Today the Asia Pacific region is one of the most significant unit of the world policy and in due course importance of the region will grow even more, first of all in economic sphere.

For the years of independence Astana has shown sincere aspiration to develop all-round relations with the Asia Pacific states. Our country adheres to the way of fruitful cooperation and has strong connections in all spheres with such states as the PRC, Australia, Vietnam, India, the Republic of Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Japan.

In these conditions, certainly, the design of the strategy of the Republic of Kazakhstan taking into account the analysis of realities existing in the Asia Pacific region, an estimation of a situation in political, economic and military areas, is extremely important.

Kazakhstan has an active position in multilateral cooperation in the frameworks of the Asia Pacific region: the initiative to convene the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA) was put forward by the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev at the 47th Session of the United Nations General Assembly on October 5, 1992, our Republic is also a state-party of the Asian Cooperation Dialogue (ACD). The idea of the Asian Cooperation Dialogue was formally put forward during the 34th ASEAN (the Association of Southeast Asian Nations) Foreign Ministers' Meeting in Hanoi between 23–24 July 2001. The Republic of Kazakhstan become a member of ACD in June 2003 in a course of the 2-nd meeting of the member-states' Foreign Ministers in Chiang Mai (Thailand).

Nowadays we can notice that Kazakhstan expresses its keen interest in cooperation with the states of Asia Pacific region in the potential areas comfortable to both sides.

Makubayev Yu.

Master of Humanitarian Sciences