U.S. urges Kazakhstan to act on democracy pledge

ASTANA (Reuters) - The United States said on Monday it was closely watching pledges by Kazakhstan to liberalize its political system as it prepares to take over the chairmanship of Europe's top democracy watchdog.

Washington originally opposed the ex-Soviet state's bid to chair the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) but endorsed it last year when Kazakhstan promised to implement wide-ranging political reforms.

"We talked about Kazakhstan's upcoming chairmanship of the OSCE and the kind of steps that Kazakhstan has said it was going to take this year in order to make itself more compatible with chairmanship of the OSCE," Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher said during a visit to Kazakhstan.

"My goal is to see how Kazakhstan will implement those commitments and implement them fully this year as the foreign minister said they would in Madrid," he said after talks with Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev in remarks emailed by the U.S. embassy.

The United States is the largest foreign investor in Kazakhstan, which lies on some of the world's biggest energy deposits and is Central Asia's largest oil producer.

Kazakhstan won approval last November to take over the rotating OSCE chairmanship in 2010 after vowing to increase press freedom and make it easier for political parties to register.

Former communist party boss Nazarbayev has ruled his nation with an iron fist since 1989. He has never been elected in a vote judged free and fair by the OSCE monitors.

Two opposition leaders have been killed in Kazakhstan in murky circumstances since 2005, the year Nazarbayev was re-elected with 91 percent of the vote. Most local media never criticize the veteran leader.

(Writing by Olzhas Auyezov; Editing by Giles Elgood)