OREANDA-NEWS. August 23, 2010.  The International Scientific Conference entitled “Turkmenistan-United Nations: Partnership for Peace and Sustainable Development” was held in the assembly hall of the Mekan Palace of the Humanitarian Association of the World Turkmen in Ashgabat.

The organizers of this important political and social action held on the instructions of President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov to promote widely and elucidate Turkmenistan’s priorities that would be presented at the 65th session of the United Nations General Assembly, which would take place in New York this September, were the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Turkmenistan and the Galkynysh National Movement.

The heads of the diplomatic missions and representations accredited to Turkmenistan, particularly including the UN agencies, the representatives of the leading ministries and departments and the large public organisations of the country, members of the Galkynysh National Movement, scientists, students and journalists were invited to discuss the important issues put on the agenda of the international conference.

Underscoring the historic and political significance of the important international initiatives put forward by President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov in the context of Turkmenistan’s peaceful foreign policy strategy, the participants emphasized that these initiatives had the common great aim to comprehensively contribute to the efforts of the international community to maintain and enhance global security, prevent and neutralize the threats of conflicts, facilitate stable and sustainable development of states, the wellbeing of peoples of the planet.

In their repots the participants emphasized that by putting forward new initiatives Turkmenistan confirmed its status of the largest peacekeeping centre of the planet, whose policy of positive neutrality and wide, constructive international cooperation directly contributed to establishing a transparent, active dialogue on problems of particle concern to all mankind facilitating achievement of the Millennium Development Goals, strengthening global peace and security, and in particular creating the climate of mutual confidence and understanding in Central Asia.

In this regard such important activities as developing the uniform concept of security, turning the Central Asian and Caspian regions into a weapon-free-zone, strengthening peace and stabilizing the situation in Afghanistan, combating international terrorism, transnational organized crime and drug trafficking, countering other threats and challenges of our time, mitigating potential threats and tensions in the region were defined as the priorities of Turkmenistan-UN cooperation built on an equal and long-term basis.

It was noted that Turkmenistan supported the efforts of the community of nations to build the effective anti-terrorism system in coordination with the UN and the Security Council. In this context our country intends to cooperate further with UN member states in developing the legal framework to combat terrorism and considers it essential to stimulate the work on the draft comprehensive convention on international terrorism. Also, Turkmenistan believes it to be relevant to consider a possibility for establishing antiterrorism information and coordination centres under the aegis of the UN in different regions of the world.

One of the important fields of concerting efforts of Turkmenistan and the United Nations is the protection of the environment, in particular saving the Aral Sea and the preservation of the Caspian Sea as a unique natural system as well as achievement of food security and cooperation in the spheres of science, culture and education that are given priority attention in Turkmenistan.

The participants noted that the strategic vectors of effective cooperation with the United Nations included the legal sphere. Having taken the road of building a jural, democratic state Turkmenistan advanced resolutely along the path to improving the national regulatory framework, actively implementing international norms and standards, including those promoting human rights.

Underscoring the importance of the joint work in a number of strategic areas, UN Resident Coordinator in Turkmenistan Lenni Montiel expressed keen interest of this largest international organisation in promoting steadily the fruitful dialogue established in recent years with Turkmenistan that advanced resolutely along the path of dynamical development ad progress and successfully implemented large-scale social and economic development programmes.

It was noted that Turkmenistan’s commitment to building harmonious interstate relations had predetermined to a larger extent delegation of the status of neutrality by the United Nations that was supported by 185 countries.

In their reports the participants emphasized that full-scale and long-term cooperation with the United Nations was a strategic choice of Turkmenistan that viewed UN as an abutment of the modern system of global collaboration, a guarantor of preservation and maintenance of peace and balance of interests on the international arena, stability of architecture of global security.

As is known, a new stage of long-term partnership of Turkmenistan with the United Nations was initiated by signing the 2010-2015 UN Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF) for Turkmenistan in August 2009. This document setting forth the major fields of collaboration of the Government of Turkmenistan and the largest UN is aimed at sustainable development of our country in conformity with national interests and priorities and achieving the Millennium Development Goals. It was noted that Turkmenistan viewed the implementation of the UNDAF provisions as the major field of collaboration. In this regard emphasis was put on the significance of the UN Summit on the Millennium Development Goals, which would take place in New York on 20-22 September this year. Turkmenistan intends to take active part in preparing and holding the UN Summit.

It was noted that at a new historical stage Turkmenistan took qualitatively new approaches to addressing challenges of the modern world. The participants underlined that the prudent, well thought-out policy pursued by President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov and impressive achievements gained under his leadership in the epoch of new Revival and fundamental reforms had facilitated Turkmenistan’s rapid integration into the international community and earned the country and its leader, whose innovative ideas gained greater support from the international community, the high prestige all over the world.

Putting forward important initiatives that conform to the priorities of the state policy as well as fundamental interests of all countries and peoples of the world, Turkmenistan consistently promotes them by taking concrete measures to fill it with practical content. This is vividly illustrated by the consistent efforts taken by Turkmenistan to promote its initiative on global energy security, in particular to strengthen international guarantees of stable energy transit.

Addressing the 64th session of the UN General Assembly, President of Turkmenistan Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov underscored the need to develop a new in principle, universal model of relations on world energy markets noting that the vulnerability of existing energy infrastructure was caused to a larger extent by inadequate development of pipeline networks and the lack of regulating international legal mechanisms.

The major steps taken to address this problem that requires concerted efforts of the international community included the UN Special Resolution on the Reliable and Stable Transit of Energy and Its Role in Ensuring Sustainable Development and International Cooperation and the international high level conference with the same title hosted by Ashgabat in April 2009, the outcomes of which included the proposal to establish an ad-hoc expert panel under the aegis of the United Nations that would develop an international legal document regulating the mechanism for reliable and stable transit of energy.

Another important initiative put forward by the Turkmen side is aimed at ensuring peace and security through building a permanent platform for the political dialogue on disarmament in Central Asia and the Caspian Sea Basin that are viewed today as the entire historical and geographical area where the strategic centre of global importance including major energy, transport and communications nodal points is being formed in modern conditions.

Expressing firm commitment to finding effective solutions to this challenge, Turkmenistan held the representative international conference of states of Central Asia and the Caspian Sea Basin on disarmament issues under the aegis of the UN this June. This conference spotlighted the countries’ understanding of the importance of issues under consideration and their willingness to establish a fruitful dialogue in this key field. As is known, underscoring the importance of strengthening the relevant international legal platform, during the years of independence Turkmenistan has acceded to the conventions prohibiting weapon of mass destruction including such its types as nuclear, chemical, bacteriological (biological) and others.

Touching upon the aspects of regional cooperation that Turkmenistan viewed as a strategic priority of its foreign policy and strengthened, the conference participants emphasized that the efforts taken by Turkmenistan that played a key role in Central Asia vividly evidenced that the country pursued in practice the policy of good neighbourliness by building relationships with states in the region on the basis of centuries-old traditions of peoples bound with historical and cultural affinities and in conformity with new political and economic realities.

In this regard Turkmenistan’s approach to building firm friendly relations with neighbouring countries as well as its determination to promote mutually advantageous partnership at both bilateral and multilateral levels, including through involving countries in the region in implementing mutually advantageous large-scale projects of regional and international importance designed to contribute to sustainable social and economic development of partner countries and further strengthen the ties of friendship and mutual understanding are quite illustrative.

In this regard the illustrative examples include intergovernmental relations with neighbouring Afghanistan that Turkmenistan has provided and will continue to provide support. Urging to concert global efforts to develop new political and diplomatic mechanisms for stabilizing the situation in Afghanistan as soon as possible, in particular developing under the auspices of the UN the long-term programme for revival of Afghanistan and its economy, Turkmenistan stands ready to provide its political space for the negotiation process.

Also, in conformity with its status of neutrality our country proposes to host an international high-level meeting on confidence-building measures and development of government institutions in Afghanistan. For this purpose the Turkmen side stands ready to discuss the issues regarding the organization of this meeting with Afghan partners, the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Afghanistan, other UN agencies, all interested parties in the near future.

It was noted that these issues would be discussed in more detail at the 65th session of the UN General Assembly that Turkmenistan viewed, above all, as a landmark event of global significance that had a great impact on the fate of all mankind and the adoption of more effective ways to tackle urgent problems that required a prompt response.

Acknowledging the importance of concerting efforts further to develop a more efficient mechanism for effective, time-driven collaboration, the participants emphasized that Turkmenistan as a full member of the United Nations demonstrated adherence to the commitments undertaken and took concrete steps in collaboration with the United Nations to promote international cooperation and contribute to maintaining international peace and security.