# Kassym-Jomart Tokayev President of Kazakhstan since 2019, the hand-picked successor to longtime strongman [[Nursultan Nazarbayev]]. A career diplomat and former prime minister and foreign minister, Tokayev consolidated power after the violent January 2022 unrest and the sidelining of the Nazarbayev clan. Tokayev is the head of state who granted the United States access to Kazakhstan's tungsten reserves in the September–November 2025 negotiations that produced the [[Kazakhstan Tungsten Deal]]. He met Commerce Secretary [[Howard Lutnick]] at New York's St. Regis Hotel in late September 2025, with [[Donald Trump]] joining by phone; the deal was signed November 6, 2025. Kazakh intelligence history also runs through the vault via [[Alnur Mussayev]], the former head of Kazakhstan's KNB. ## See Also - [[Kazakhstan]] — the country page - [[Kazakhstan Tungsten Deal]] - [[Nursultan Nazarbayev]] - [[Alnur Mussayev]]