The publicity-hungry Central Asian state of Kazakhstan was on Wednesday hosting the first summit of the OSCE in over a decade, despite concerns its rights record made it an unsuitable venue.

The trans-Atlantic security group -- which aims to prevent and heal conflicts across Europe and the former Soviet Union -- was to meet in Kazakhstan's showpiece new capital Astana.

Leaders including US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev will seek to reinvigorate the group's role in the first summit since a meeting in Istanbul in 1999.

The summit was to officially get underway at 0400 GMT amid some of the tightest security ever seen for such a meeting in the region, which has included the deployment of 7,000 police in the city.

Many ordinary Astana residents have preferred to leave the city for the duration of the summit, with December 1-2 declared a public holiday in the capital and the area around the venue a no-go area for locals.

But the summit -- which coincides with Kazakhstan's 2010 chairmanship of the OSCE -- has also been criticised by some activists who say the country's dubious rights record made it a poor choice.

The idea of the gathering was championed by Kazakhstan's strongman president since independence, Nursultan Nazarbayev, who enjoys the support of a rubber stamp parliament and a lack of any criticism in the pro-government press.

New York-based watchdog Human Rights Watch described Kazakhstan's rights record as "stagnant" and said promises to improve media freedoms during its chairmanship had remained unfulfilled.

"The disappointing paradox is that Kazakhstan has been very active as OSCE chair but took few if any meaningful steps to improve its own human rights record," said Rachel Denber, HRW's Europe and Central Asia director.

But after Kazakhstan's frosty reaction to the the 2006 comedy hit film "Borat" about a fictitious politically incorrect Kazakh journalist, the summit represents a chance for the country to project a shiny modern image.

Astana has grown exponentially since taking over from Almaty as Kazakh capital in 1997 and it boasts a skyline of modern buildings ranging from gigantic futurist structures to more stylish work by world architects.

Clinton's talks at the summit are likely to be marked by the delicate task of providing explanations to world leaders in the wake of the scandal created by the release of leaked US diplomatic cables by the WikiLeaks website.

"I've been reaching out to governments and leaders around the world the last week. I will continue to do so," she said in a speech to students in Astana after arriving.

The Kazakh leadership was itself touched by the scandal, with documents alleging the president spends much time at a property in the United Arab Emirates while his prime minister has a taste for nightclubs.