Kazakhstan, Astana, March 5 / Trend A. Maratov /
Adviser to the Kazakh President Yermukhamet Yertysbayev has denied the accusations of former son-in-law of Nursultan Nazarbayev of renting a huge territory to China for a period nearly a century.
The accusations of Rahat Aliyev that the Kazakh President promised to rent one million hectares of Kazakh land for 99 years to China are dirty rumors, " Yertysbayev said in an interview with Kazakh newspaper Ekspress K.
In an open letter to citizens of the country, former son-in-law of the president Rahat Aliyev accused the head of the republic of signing a secret treaty with China. According to it, one million hectares of fertile land of Kazakhstan will be leased for 99 years. In his accusations Rahat Aliyev refers to his own "reliable sources".
"Aliyev has committed serious crimes. He is a state criminal. He is under a sword of Damocles of imminent extradition. So, he is primarily interested in spreading such gossip," he said.
"I state with full responsibility that all of this are a lie, deliberate deception to bring dissatisfied to the streets," he said.
The rumors about renting the Kazakh land to China are not distributed for the first time. The official state bodies of China or Kazakhstan will not respond on the absurd accusations, he said.
"If anyone of our opponents does not calm down and try to arrange spontaneous protests, then they will respond according to the law," he said.
He said that China will remain a reliable partner of Kazakhstan, despite these provocations.
"China is a great power. This is an elephant which never pays attention to mosquito bites," he said.
Kazakh politician and diplomat Rahat Aliyev is a persona non grata in Kazakhstan. In 2007 he moved into opposition to the current power, being in the position of Kazakh ambassador to Austria. Aliyev is deprived of all ranks and titles and sentenced in absentia to 20 years' imprisonment on charges of creating and leading the organized criminal group and kidnapping.
Rahat Aliyev regularly accuses Kazakh authorities.