Astana: Kazakhstan on Monday announced to hire Britain’s ex-prime minister Tony Blair as a consultant to attract new investment to the Central Asian state.
The hire marks a major coup for strongman President Nursultan Nazarbayev’s bid to promote Kazakhstan as an economic powerhouse despite complaints from critics that the country pays little heed to Western democratic standards.
The British newspaper, earlier said Blair had signed a one-year contract worth eight million pounds ($12.7 million) with the government of Nazarbayev, who has ruled Kazakhstan since even before the Soviet collapse.
The foreign ministry refused to confirm the figure but said Blair was one of several foreign officials contracted by the Kazakh state.
Since leaving office in 2007, Blair became an official special envoy in the Middle East, launched the Blair Faith Foundation, and offered consulting services to foreign governments.
Blair, 58, has been criticised over his role as envoy for the Middle East Quartet, with his detractors alleging that he has been almost invisible and in any case hugely compromised by his role in the Iraq war.
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