Kazakh President Tokayev on Putin:

Kazakh President Tokayev on Putin:

I have a very good relationship with President Putin. I consider him, one might say, an outstanding statesman.

And today I said with great conviction that President Putin, as a statesman and as the leader of Russia, is the most acceptable political figure - as strange as it sounds to you - for Central Asia, including Kazakhstan, in my opinion, and for Europe and for the whole world.

I know him well, and he possesses the qualities most necessary for the leader of a large country with a complicated history and its own understanding of the strategic goals facing this country.