Kazakh President appoints new PM, Foreign Minister - India News and Travel Times Provides India-centric and other News and Features

Kazakhstan’s President Nursultan Nazarbayev has appointed Serik Akhmetov and Yerlan Idrissov as the country’s new Prime Minister and Foreign Minister respectively. A statement issued by the Embassy of Kazakhstan in New Delhi said that Akhmetov replaces Karim Massimov, who has been appointed the head of the Kazakhstan Presidential Administration. Massimov was the Prime Minister of Kazakstan since January 2007. He was asked to relinquish charge earlier this week. Akmetov, 54, holds a degree in metallurgical engineering and pursued his PhD studies in economics at the Academy of Management in Russia . Akhmetov is married with two children and two grandchildren. He was earlier Kazakhstan ’s First Deputy Prime-Minister. He was also Minister of Transport and Communications, First Deputy Mayor of Astana and Mayor of Karaganda Oblast. He has been the Chairman of the Board of the Atameken National Union of Entrepreneurs and Employers, and in August 2012, he was made Board Chairman of KazAgro, Kazakhstan's national holding to stimulate development of agriculture. After taking charge as Prime Minister, Akmetov has appointed Serik Abdenov as the Minister of Labor and Social Protection and Yerbolat Dossayev as the Minister of Economic Development and Trade. New Foreign Minister Yerlan Idrissov was born in 1959 in Karkaralinsk. He has about two decades experience of foreign affairs. In 1992, he was appointed Secretary of the Permanent Mission of Kazakhstan to the United Nations in New York . Three years later, he began work for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Kazakhstan as the Head of the American Department, while also acting as the Ambassador-at-Large. Idrissov later became assistant to the President of Kazakhstan, focusing on international issues, and, in 1997, was nominated the First Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs of Kazakhstan. Following his service in this position, he was appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs of Kazakhstan in October 1999. Idrissov was posted to London in 2002 to serve as Ambassador to the United Kingdom , Norway , and Sweden . He continued to work in Europe until he was appointed Ambassador to the United States on July 7, 2007.