From October to December 2024, Kazakhstan’s foreign policy agenda found itself at the epicenter of attention for several global players in the nuclear industry. Following a referendum in which over 70% of the country’s citizens supported the idea of constructing Kazakhstan’s first nuclear power plant (NPP), active diplomatic efforts began to form an international consortium.
President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev announced plans that the participants of the international consortium for the nuclear power plant construction in Kazakhstan will be determined in 2025 in a Jan. 3 interview.
For the first time in a long while, Kazakhstan is emerging in the energy sector not as a seeker of technology but as a desirable partner, boasting extensive resource bases, a favorable investment environment, and enormous potential for the future nuclear energy market in Central Asia.
Multivector nuclear diplomacy (in the best molds of the principles of Kazakhstan’s multi-vector foreign policy) fulfills several very important functions for Kazakhstan. First, it helps the country to obtain the most favorable conditions for the construction of NPPs on its territory.