Kazakhstan's best-known TV reporter has been invited to visit his homeland to see for himself that it is not full of misogynistic anti-Semites addicted to horse urine.

The invitation to Borat Sagdiyev, the fictional TV reporter played by Sacha Baron Cohen, marks an apparent change of tack from the Government of Kazakhstan, which has waged a long and spectacularly unsuccessful campaign against the British comedian.

"His trip could yield a lot of discoveries - that women not only travel inside buses but also drive their own cars, that we make wine from grapes, that Jews can freely attend synagogues and so on," said Rakhat Aliyev, the Deputy Foreign Minister, who issued the invitation.

Borat, supposedly a journalist from a Kazakh state-run TV network, has claimed that the favoured mode of transport in his home country is a wooden cart pulled by peasant women, that wine is made of horse urine, and that there is a popular folk song entitled Throw The Jew Down The Well.

He also insists that cow-punching is a sport and that raping and incest are respectable national hobbies in the former Soviet republic.

The Kazakh Government responded by closing down Borat’s website and running adverts in US media denouncing his stunts and proclaiming laudable facts and figures on the nation’s economic growth, cultural achievements and progress on civil liberties.

The Government also threatened Mr Cohen with legal action after he hosted last year’s MTV Europe Music Awards as the spoof character, arriving in an "Air Kazakh" propeller plane controlled by a one-eyed pilot clutching a bottle of vodka.

But now it would seem, authorities have resigned themselves to attempting to see the funny side, issuing the invitation as a gesture of peace.

"I understand that the feelings of many people are hurt by Cohen’s show," said Mr Aliyev, who is son-in-law of the President, Nursultan Nazarbayev. "But we must have a sense of humour and respect other people’s freedom of creativity.

"It’s useless to offend an artist and threaten to sue him. It will only further damage the country’s reputation and make Borat even more popular."

Even if he does not take up their offer, Kazakh officials can console themselves that they have an imminent alternative to turn to; his new film, Borat: Cultural Learnings Of America For Make Benefit Glorious Nation Of Kazakhstan, which has its British premiere next week at The Times BFI London Film Festival.

It shows Borat being dispatched to the US, where he becomes obsessed with tracking down Pamela Anderson, the former Baywatch star.

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