A meeting between the foreign ministers of Central Asian countries and the OSCE Secretary General took place in Ashgabat
A meeting of the Secretary General of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and the heads of foreign affairs of the Central Asian states took place on Tuesday, October 31, in Ashgabat. During the meeting, which took place in the building of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Turkmenistan, there was a thorough exchange of views on the most important topics of regional security, sustainable development and stability. Particular attention of the meeting participants was paid to border security, climate change and ecology, as well as transport communications.
OSCE Secretary General Helga Schmid noted that this forum is aimed at expanding and strengthening interaction in solving pressing problems in the region in each of the above dimensions. She emphasized the need for joint activities of all Central Asian countries and relevant international structures, outlining the important role of OSCE projects and measures in this process.
The ministers discussed the objectives of cooperation, described the steps taken by each of the Central Asian states in these directions and came up with a number of ideas and proposals for consolidating efforts for the sake of regional security and stability, the press service of the Turkmen Foreign Ministry reports.
During his speech, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Turkmenistan Rashid Meredov emphasized that reliable border security is the basis for maintaining peace and prosperity in the region.
Environmental safety remains a priority area of international cooperation of Turkmenistan, this also applies to project activities on rational environmental management and sustainable water resources management. In this regard, Meredov noted the importance of the practical implementation of the proposal of the Turkmen side to develop a draft OSCE Comprehensive Environmental Program.
The minister also called on the meeting participants to support Turkmenistan’s idea of establishing a Regional Center for Climate Technologies. In this regard, a proposal was put forward to hold an OSCE forum on technologies related to climate change.
Turkmenistan also advocates promoting the initiative of the OSCE Secretary General to hold regular meetings with the ministers of environmental protection of the Central Asian countries. The first such meeting within the framework of the Climate Conference in July of this year showed that this format is timely and in demand. In this regard, the Turkmen side expressed its readiness to host the next meeting of this format in 2024 in Turkmenistan.
Another pressing issue on the agenda was strengthening cooperation in a key segment of global development - sustainable transport. The Meeting participants noted the wide opportunities for consolidated actions in this direction, first of all, this concerns issues of stimulating East-West transport links.
The Turkmen side drew special attention of the participants to the initiative of the President of Turkmenistan to create a Central Asian transport and logistics platform, announced at the fifth Consultative Meeting of the Leaders of Central Asian Countries in September this year in Dushanbe, which will allow optimizing routes and procedures, accelerating the transportation of goods and passengers. It was proposed to use the potential of the OSCE in the implementation of this idea, which is promising for the entire region.
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