ASTANA, Kazakhstan: US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Sunday rejected any suggestion that US efforts to build closer ties to this former Soviet republic are meant to undermine Russian influence in Central Asia.

“This is not a zero-sum game,’’ Rice told reporters flying with her to the Kazakh capital. US gains need not mean Russian losses, she said.

“First of all, Kazakhstan is an independent country. It can have friendships with whomever it wishes,’’ she said. “That’s perfectly acceptable in the 21st century, so we don’t see and don’t accept any notion of a special sphere of influence’’ for Russia in this region.

Later at a joint news conference with her Kazakh counterpart, Foreign Minister Marat Tazhin, Rice said no one should question Kazakhstan’s desire to have good relations with all countries in its region. “This is not some kind of contest for the affection of Kazakhstan,’’ Rice said. Tazhin described his country’s relations with the United States as “stable,’’ and Kazakh relations with Russia as “excellent’’ and “politically correct.’’ Asked by a reporter whether he considered his country to be in a Russian “sphere of influence,’’ Tazhin said no, adding that he believed such a question was of interest mainly to academics and to journalists. Rice was scheduled to meet President Nursultan Nazarbayev; her Kazakhstan counterpart, Foreign Minister Marat Tazhin; and Prime Minister Karim Masimov.

Rice is leading US efforts to court energy-rich Kazakhstan.

The top US diplomat, who was in India on Saturday, planned to stress Kazakhstan’s potential as an energy supplier while democracy and human rights seemed likely to take a back seat Nazarbayev, the country’s autocratic ruler, has maintained a military alliance and close relations with Russia.

He also has kept a door open to the West and looked to develop new export routes to Europe for Kazakhstan’s vast energy resources. But that balancing act has been in doubt since Russia’s invasion of Georgia in August, which threatened to close off the corridor for pipelines around Russia. Since Russian forces pushed close to Georgia’s capital before pulling back, US President George W Bush’s administration has tried to signal its commitment to countries in the Caucasus and Central Asia. Last month, Vice President Dick Cheney travelled to Georgia, Ukraine and Azerbaijan, another important energy exporter in the region. The administration does not want to be seen as the one “that lost Eurasia and the Caspian region,’’ said Ariel Cohen, an analyst at the conservative Heritage Foundation in Washington.

The United States also has sought to develop military ties with Kazakhstan as a regional power close to US operations in Afghanistan. Kazakhstan’s membership in a Russian-led Eurasian security bloc precludes the country from joining Nato. But it retains close contact with and regularly conducts joint military exercises with the Western alliance.