The Senate ratified the “Agreement between the government of Kazakhstan and the government of the People’s Republic of China on the exchange of information regarding citizens of the states of the parties.”
As Ashimbaev said, ratification will first of all solve the problem with dual citizenship.
“This is an important agreement. This agreement is aimed at creating a mechanism for the exchange of information in the field of migration and is also aimed at cooperation in the fight against dual citizenship. Unfortunately, such facts occur, I am not talking about China now in this situation, I am talking about in general, that, according to our data, which were presented by the ministry, 841 cases of dual citizenship were identified in 2022.
And this year, from January to October 1, 525 persons with dual citizenship were identified. Unfortunately, there are cases when among them were deputies of local representative bodies, which raises questions. Therefore, such violations of the law must be fought,” Ashimbaev said.
In turn, Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs Igor Lepekha, answering questions about identifying dual citizenship with China, said that before ratifying the agreement, the Kazakh side has to “submit one-time requests” for one or another citizen.
“The most important thing is that there must be the consent of the citizen; if he is against, then this information will not be provided to us. And most of them, of course, are against it. Therefore, today we do not have reliable information. (…) After this agreement came into force, no there will be no permissions. We will send information and receive data. And the Chinese side will also give data about those who have received their citizenship.
Now we have five bilateral agreements of this kind, and we have a trilateral agreement with Russia and Armenia. We are already working with them. We are working on this issue with France, but so far there is no agreement,” Lepekha added on the sidelines of the Senate.
