11:36am UK, Friday November 25, 2005

Ali G creator Sacha Baron Cohen has been threatened with legal action by Kazakhstan over his comedy character Borat.

The country's foreign ministry is furious with the comic's performances as the spoof Kazakh TV presenter.

180 Borat At MTV Awards Headshot

'Borat' at the MTV awards

Mr Cohen, who shot to fame playing Ali G, wins laughs by portraying the central Asian state as a country full of drunks who enjoy cow-punching as a sport.

He appears to have particularly upset officials by hosting the annual MTV Europe Music Awards show in Lisbon earlier this month as Borat.

The character arrived at the event in an Air Kazakh propeller plane controlled by a one-eyed pilot clutching a vodka bottle.

Kazakh Foreign Ministry spokesman Yerzhan Ashykbayev said: "We do not rule out that Mr Cohen is serving someone's political order designed to present Kazakhstan and its people in a derogatory way."

Another of Borat's jokes about the Central Asian state is that its people would shoot a dog and then have a party.

Mr Ashykbayev added: "We view Mr. Cohen's behaviour at the MTV Europe Music Awards as utterly unacceptable."

He described his act as a "concoction of bad taste and ill manners which is completely incompatible with ethics and civilised behaviour".