The timing could have been better for Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. She began her tour of Central Asia today in Kazakhstan amid fallout from embarrassing secret documents released by the whistleblower website WikiLeaks, in which a U.S. official made disparaging remarks about Kazakhstan’s leadership. This could complicate the trip, the Washington Post reports. 

In one of the cables, a U.S. Embassy official based in the country’s capital, Astana, describes the hard partying and self-indulgence of the country’s leaders.

"Kazakh leaders are able to indulge in their hobbies on a grand scale, whether flying Elton John to Kazakhstan for a concert or trading domestic property for a palace in the United Arab Emirates,” the officials observe. 

President Nursultan Nazarbayev once flew the singer in to perform at his son-in-law’s birthday party. The cable says that John was paid one million pounds for the performance.

Clinton is scheduled to meet with Nazarbayev on Wednesday. She is supposed to bring to the country a "message of openness" and has promised to discuss the issue of imprisoned dissidents.

Kazakhstan is known for its restrictive policies. It has imprisoned activists and journalists. Many bloggers in the country have been locked up. At the same time, at a town hall session Tuesday, Clinton condemned WikiLeaks’ release of the diplomatic cables, saying they put people’s lives in danger.

"We consider it regrettable that information that was meant to be confidential has been made public, and I particularly worry about the human rights activists, the religious leaders, the critics of governments who speak to members of our embassy about abuses in their own country, whose name may either be in a reporting cable or who may be identifiable because of the description of the person," Clinton said.

A female member of Kazakhstan’s parliament, who says Clinton inspired her to enter politics, called the cables “entertaining reading.” Kazakh citizens are reported as saying that the reports of their leaders’ penchants for lavishness are old news.

Clinton will also visit the Kyrgyz Republic, Uzbekistan and Bahrain.