In recent years, Kazakhstan has made an effort to deepen and expand cooperation with the world’s Islamic community. The focus has been on economic and cultural ties, but political and security issues have also been prominent due to the large number of internal and regional conflicts afflicting Muslim majority countries. Toward this end, in 1995, Kazakhstan joined the Organization for Islamic Conference (OIC), which was established in 1969. Kazakhstan then became the first Central Asian country to chair the organization as the rotating head of its Council of Foreign Ministers (CFM) from June 2011 to November 2012. READ MORE