Kazakhstan, Astana, Nov. 11 / Trend A.Maratov /
The development of democracy is Kazakhstan's conscious choice, to which the country is moving since independence, the OSCE Chairman, Kazakh State Secretary and Kazakh Foreign Minister, Kanat Saudabayev, said.
"Democracy is a process that has a beginning but no end. All 19 years of our independence, one can observe the dynamics of this process in our country," Saudabayev said in an interview with Trend and several foreign media in the run up to the OSCE summit in Astana scheduled for Dec.1-2.
Prior to Kazakhstan's acceptation an annual OSCE chairmanship in January 2010, a number of Western NGOs have expressed doubts about the country's compatibility level to the organization's statutory positions, explaining that there are problems in the field of human rights and democracy in Kazakhstan
"The Kazakh people consciously chose the path of democracy since the early days of independence," Saudabayev said. "The country had been developing in this direction all these years and will develop further."
"It is fundamentally wrong to say that we have carried out reforms in our legislation on the eve of the OSCE chairmanship and the summit," he said.
In early February 2009, Kazakhstan adopted a new legislation on media, elections and political parties in the implementation of commitments undertaken by the country at the annual meeting of the OSCE foreign ministers in November 2007.
Kazakhstan, he said, ensured the basic rights of citizens - the right to a decent life, education, health, freedom of speech and movement, freedom of religion, culture and traditions.
"The fact that Kazakhstan could avoid the upheaval in the religious and ethnic grounds in contrast to many former Soviet republics is an outstanding contribution to the achievement of democracy in our country," Saudabayev said.