Kazakhstan and Russia: Experience and Prospects of Transfrontier Cooperation (1991-2015)

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Russian Federation and the Republic of Kazakhstan had to re-build their bilateral relations, and today this process continues. Both countries face up to a number of objective difficulties, such as crisis and the need to develop new foreign and domestic policy doctrines. Nevertheless, several bilateral agreements show the governments' desire to establish closer co-operation and to look for new integration method. Cross-border cooperation presents one of these methods. This paper deals with specific features of interterritorial and cross-border cooperation between border regions of the Republic of Kazakhstan and the Russian Federation, basic problems of cross-border cooperation in these regions. The authors identified the most important areas of further cross-border and interregional cooperation between Kazakhstan and Russia. Relevant legal documents show intense cooperation development between the countries; this is confirmed by the participation of Kazakhstan and Russia in a number of international organizations, in particular, SCO, CIS, and the Customs Union. Development of cross-border cooperation presents a new stage in bilateral relations. Currently, the main difficulties that hinder such cooperation include inadequate legal framework, which requires improvement in order to meet the requirements of bilateral relations, the need to extend state funding, as well as the need to attract foreign investment.