In view of Kazakhstan's strategic position between the East and West, I believe, it may play an important role as the OSCE chairman," visiting OSCE Commissioner for National Minorities Knut Volebek told journalists after the talks with the country's FM.

The OSCE area sees to date challenges arising from the ethnic diversity, globalization, and relations between the various religions. Your government deals at present with these issues and intends to solve them during the OSCE chairmanship ahead. Therefore, I'm here to cooperate with both the government and foreign minister."

In the course of the meeting the parties debated issues of further cooperation with Kazakhstan. "As is known we are involved in a wide range of projects in Kazakhstan, programs on national minorities, in the sphere of education, language training and electoral process." he said.

On the eve Mr Volebek had talks with President Nursultan Nazarbayev.