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The Secretary General of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, Helga Maria Schmid, is expected to visit Turkmenistan in March this year. Within the framework of this visit, a high-level meeting will be held in Ashgabat with the participation of heads of environmental ministries of Central Asian countries. This was announced by Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Rashid Meredov at a meeting of the Turkmen government on Friday, February 23.

As reported in the evening news release of the national State Television, the Foreign Minister presented to President Serdar Berdimuhamedov a draft work plan for cooperation between the Government of Turkmenistan and the OSCE for 2024.

The Minister's report mentioned that the OSCE Center has been operating in the Turkmen capital on a permanent basis since 1999. More than 500 projects have been implemented within the framework of joint plans for 25 years. 37 projects are scheduled to be implemented in 2024.

In the political sphere, these are projects aimed at consolidating peace and security, developing preventive diplomacy, and countering modern challenges and threats.

Projects on the economic and environmental tracks are aimed at solving issues related to the development of regional economic cooperation, improving energy efficiency, environmental safety, and climate change.

Humanitarian projects cover work in the field of education and science, protection of human rights and freedoms, improvement of democratic institutions of the country, ensuring gender equality, addressing issues of statelessness, media development, etc.

In January, Malta replaced Northern Macedonia as the OSCE Chairman-in-Office. During a ministerial meeting in Skopje in December 2023, the mandate of OSCE Secretary General Helga Schmid and three other senior leaders of the organization (Representative for Freedom of the Media Teresa Ribeiro, High Commissioner for National Minorities Kairat Abdrakhmanov and Head of the Bureau for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights Matteo Mecacci) was extended for nine months, until September 2024 of the year.

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Photo: osce.org