Prime Minister of the Republic of Kazakhstan Karim Massimov visited the Joint Institute of Nuclear Research on 11 July 2011. The head of the Government was accompanied by Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Kazakhstan in RF Zautbek Turisbekov, Head of the Office of the Prime Minister Gabidulla Abdrakhimov, President of the JSC “NAC Kazatomprom” Vladimir Shkolnik, Vice-Minister of the Ministry of Industry and New Technologies Bakhytzhan Dzhaksaliev and General Director of the National Nuclear Center of the Republic of Kazakhstan, JINR Plenipotentiary of Kazakhstan Kairat Kadyrzhanov.

The honored guests were acquainted with history and present activities of JINR at the JINR Directorate. The government delegation of Kazakhstan was welcomed by elected JINR Director Victor Matveev and JINR Acting Director Mikhail Itkis.

The Prime Minister noted in his presentation that the Government of Kazakhstan pays great attention to development of atomic energy, and in this connection issues of training and retraining of specialist in the fields of employment of atomic energy are being solved. This year six students from Kazakhstan successfully defended their theses in Dubna and Astana. The Government of Kazakhstan intends to continue cooperation with JINR in the fields of development of educational programmes. The project DC-60 in Astana will celebrate its 5th anniversary on 21 September 2011. The Prime Minister believes that scientific and research activity of the cyclotron complex is the eloquent evidence of successful integration of education and science and advancement of leading technologies into real economics. A wide complex of topics connected with development of cooperation of scientific centers of the Republic of Kazakhstan with JINR was also discussed during the talks.

The Prime Minister of the Republic of Kazakhstan and the accompanying persons visited the Flerov Laboratory of Nuclear Reactions and the Veksler and Baldin Laboratory of High Energy Physics where they were acquainted with most advanced scientific directions and new projects which could serve the basis for further development of partnership relations of scientific centers of Kazakhstan and JINR.