Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev has praised Prince Aga Khan's peace and friendship efforts and the activities of the Aga Khan Organization for Development in Kazakhstan, especially the founding of a Central Asian university. Speaking at a ceremony at which he awarded the prince the Peace and Progress prize which Nazarbayev himself founded, the president also suggested the Agha Khan organization might contribute to work to restoring people's health in the Aral Sea region. The following is an excerpt from report by Interfax-Kazakhstan news agency
Astana, 17 December: Prince Karim Aga Khan [IV], the imam of [the Ismaili group] of Shiite Muslims, highly rates Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev's role in ensuring progress and harmony in Central Asia.
"It is very important that the leaders of other countries follow your example of going forward to tackle and react to the many challenges in the development of peace and order," Prince Aga Khan told Nazarbayev in [the Kazakh capital] Astana at a ceremony to receive the state Peace and Progress prize of the first Kazakh president.
Prince Aga Khan noted that it was a great honour for him to receive the prize. "The fact that the prize was created by you makes this award of particular significance to me," he said, addressing Nazarbayev.
The prince noted that "the strengthening of recognition of the particular importance of cultural pluralism is one of the most topical needs of the international community".
"I believe that it is possible to ensure peace only if the pluralistic nature of human society is recognized and viewed as a source of strength than weakness, if this is used both as the basis for working out policies and a structure at all levels of administration," the prince said.
In turn, Nazarbayev noted at the ceremony that an interstate university that is being set up by Aga Khan jointly with Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan in Central Asia will help the study of the conditions of people who live in mountainous regions, as well as their social and economic problems.
"The work of the university will enable us to substantially step up the processes of research and development of mountainous regions and train the required specialists," the Kazakh president said.
As was reported, Prince Aga Khan initiated the setting up in Central Asia of a regional university for studying the lives of people living in mountainous terrain. A contract to set up such a university in Central Asia was signed between Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Prince Aga Khan in September last year. The parliaments of all the three states ratified the document.
Nazarbayev also noted that the Aga Khan Organization for Development (AKOD) had helped Kazakhstan hold an international conference on the fight against drugs as part of the UN programme. The president noted the AKOD's participation in the rehabilitation of Semipalatinsk region [the former nuclear test site in eastern Kazakhstan]. "Kazakhstan highly rates your efforts to strengthen peace and friendship and mutual understanding between peoples and your contribution to preserving historical and cultural treasures and developing social progress," the president said to Prince Aga Khan.
At a briefing after the ceremony, Prince Aga Khan noted that he intended to contribute his prize to a special fund to support the future needy students of the university that is being set up in Central Asia. The presidential press service told journalists that the prize was worth to 6,000 monthly minimums (this year's monthly minimum is 823 tenge, the current exchange rate is 155.4 tenge to the dollar) [over 31,000 dollars]. The prize is paid from the republican budget.
A press release distributed during the briefing says that at the meeting with the prince the Kazakh president proposed that the possibility of the AKOD participating in measures to rehabilitate people's health in the Aral Sea region should be considered.
[Passage to end omitted: the prince was awarded the prize for his contribution to strengthening peace and friendship; the prince has received different awards from many states]
Source: Interfax-Kazakhstan news agency, Almaty, in Russian 1135 gmt 17 Dec 02
/(c) BBC Monitoring