Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev on Thursday opened the official leg of a U.S. visit in which the country\'s growing importance as an oil supplier and its shortcomings in protecting human rights are key agenda topics. On a pristine early autumn morning, Nazarbayev unveiled a monument on the Kazakh Embassy\'s front lawn that depicts the independence his country achieved 15 years ago. He hailed U.S.-Kazakh cooperation on energy and other issues, and he expressed hope that the visit ``will bring bilateral relations to a new level.\'\' U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman represented the Bush administration at the ceremony. He also took note of U.S.-Kazakh friendship, offering only a brief hint at diplomatic differences. \'\'We don\'t agree on every issue but mostly we do,\'\' he said. The monument, based on a fourth-century B.C. artifact, portrays \'\'a young warrior on a winged snow leopard,\'\' in the words of the inscription on the base of the monument. Nazarbayev spent part of Tuesday and Wednesday in Maine as guest of former President George H.W. Bush. Yachting was on their agenda. He was to meet with Vice President Dick Cheney on Thursday and finally with President Bush at the White House today. Kazakhstan, a vast country north of Afghanistan and Iran that is nearly the size of Western Europe, is expected to pump 3.5 million barrels of oil a day in the coming decade. White House press secretary Tony Snow said Thursday that the U.S. government\'s concerns about democracy in Kazakhstan would come up during the meeting with Bush, but he would not characterize how big a place on the agenda it would hold. (AP)