REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, ASTANA -- Vice President Jusuf Kalla paid a courtesy call on Kazakh Prime Minister Bakytzhan Sagintayev at the latter's office here on Saturday.

Head of the vice president's secretariat Mohamad Oemar said the visit was aimed at exploring efforts to increase bilateral cooperation.

"So far, indeed, there have not been many cooperation programs between Indonesia and Kazakhstan," he pointed out.

Vice President Jusuf Kalla was accompanied by Coordinating Minister for Human Resource Development and Culture Puan Maharani and Deputy Police Chief Commissioner General Syafruddin.

He arrived at the office of the Kazakh prime minister at 12:30 p.m. local time, and the closed-door meeting lasted for some 30 minutes.

Vice President Kalla visited Kazakhstan to attend the first summit of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) on science and technology.

The two-day meeting is scheduled to be opened by the president of Kazakhstan at the Palace of Independence at Tauelsizdik Ave 52 in Astana, Kazakhstan, on Sunday.

Vice President Kalla, in the company of wife Mufidah, arrived in Astana on Friday evening at around 10:30 p.m. local time.

"Kalla is the only vice president among 20 heads of state and government to be present at the meeting," the vice president's spokesman Husain Abdullah noted in a written statement received here on Thursday.

Kalla was accompanied by Coordinating Minister for Human Resource Development and Culture Puan Maharani and Minister of Research, Technology, and Higher Education Mohammad Nasir.

Kalla will give a speech on the proposal on seeded programs and scholarship for students of OIC members and highlight the importance of cooperation among centers of excellence at the Working Session I on Emerging Relations between Science and Society in the 21st Century scheduled on Sunday (Sept 10).

Kalla noted that the meeting will offer a good momentum for advancing Islamic countries, especially since the number of Muslim scientists who have won a Nobel Prize is low.

"It should be our common effort to advance the Islamic world," he had stated while receiving a courtesy call of Kazakhstan's Foreign Minister Aklybek Kamaldinov at his office in Jakarta, on June 16, 2017.

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