AKIPRESS.COM - Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev said on Thursday he and Russia's leader Vladimir Putin were concerned with the situation in Tajikistan.

"(We are) very concerned with the situation in Tajikistan," Nazarbayev said at a joint news conference after talks with Putin.

Tajikistan shares a border with Afghanistan, where there has been a flare-up in Taliban activity in the past few weeks, and there has also been internal strife inside Tajikistan, which the government blamed on Islamists.

Tajikistan itself witnessed a deadly alleged mutiny by a serving deputy defense minister in September.

Nazarbayev also said "Kazakhstan has been, continues to be, and will remain the closest and most reliable neighbor and ally of Russia."

Nazarbayev praised the Eurasian Economic Union, a Moscow-led grouping bringing together Armenia, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, as well as Russia and Kazakhstan, reports RFE/RL.

Nazarbayev said “a great number of countries” were eager to work with the bloc. 

For his part, Putin said bilateral ties with Kazakhstan were "a true allied relationship in every sense of the word."

Putin said the two countries have "big plans" to drill for oil in the Caspian Sea.

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