ASTANA. Jan 30 (Interfax) - Kazakhstan and Russia concluded an agreement to establish a joint regional air defense system on Wednesday.
The document was signed during a meeting between Kazakh Defense Minister Adilbek Dzhaksybekov and Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, who is paying an official visit to Astana.
The enactment of the document will "provide a foundation for security of Kazakhstan's airspace and Russia's territory adjacent to the border," the Kazakh Defense Ministry said.
"We signed an agreement on setting up a joint air defense system today. This agreement is very important, and it has been prepared for about six years," Shoigu said.
"This air defense agreement contains new components, including regarding missile defense," he added.
"The agreement is serious and comprehensive, and it also says about the consolidation of our information spaces, their integration, and the introduction of additional [air defense] elements, which will certainly help improve security of our states, which we can only welcome," Shoigu said.
The volume of cooperation between Kazakhstan and Russia "is really large and embraces all areas, from our interaction within the CSTO [the Collective Security Treaty Organization] to our bilateral cooperation," Shoigu said. "This also concerns the operation of ranges [on Kazakh territory], cooperation in space, and various military-technological cooperation agreements providing for shipments of new weapons and military hardware systems," he said.
Dzhaksybekov emphasized that the signing of the said agreement "will bring our interaction to a higher level and will improve defense capability of our countries."