Photo: MFA

Cholpon-Ata hosted a meeting of Central Asian foreign ministers. Ministers of Foreign Affairs of Kazakhstan, Kairat Abdrakhmanov, Kyrgyzstan Erlan Abdyldaev, Tajikistan Sirojiddin Muhriddin, Uzbekistan Abdulaziz Kamilov and Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Turkmenistan Berdyniyaz Myatiev discussed regional cooperation in Central Asia.

“A fruitful first working (consultative) meeting of Central Asian heads of state in Astana marked the beginning of a new stage in regional relations. President of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev, attaches great importance to uniting the potential of the Central Asian countries, increasing intra-regional trade, ensuring security in the region and bringing our peoples closer," Minister Abdrakhmanov said.

The Kazakh foreign minister highlighted in his statement that regular meetings of foreign ministers should serve as an effective platform for discussing and addressing common problems. It was proposed to start practical implementation of the final protocol of the Astana meeting.

“Central Asia is a nuclear-weapon-free zone, and our region has the opportunity to take the lead on this issue. We need to intensify cooperation between all non-nuclear zones of the world," Minister Abdrakhmanov stated. The minister said that the initiative of the head of state to hold a nuclear-weapon-free zones summit was aimed at securing the role of Central Asia as a center of cooperation between nuclear-weapon-free zones.

As a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council, Kazakhstan showed its willingness to make efforts in promoting this issue within the UN.

In the course of the meeting, the Kazakh side endorsed the activities of Turkmenistan as the Chairman of the International Fund for Saving the Aral Sea, which is the only institutional dialogue platform in Central Asia at the level of the heads of state.

Matters of regional security and joint fight against transnational challenges and threats were raised. The participants welcomed the contribution of the regional countries to stabilization of Afghanistan and collaboration of the Central Asian countries with the IRA. In this context, Mr. Abdrakhmanov underlined the significance of holding the Regional Conference “Women Empowerment in Afghanistan" in Astana this September and offered to arrange a high-level OSCE meeting on Afghanistan in 2019.

The foreign ministers agreed that it is essential to organize meetings in this format for developing collective approaches to addressing common regional issues and strengthening five-sided cooperation.

It was noted that the positions of the Central Asian countries are very similar on many aspects of regional cooperation and the suggestion was made to boost the dialogue between countries of the region.

The ministers pointed out the rationale of regular five-sided inter-ministerial consultations and expert meetings for preparing the next Central Asian consultation meeting scheduled for the eve of Nauryz in 2019 in Uzbekistan.

The foreign ministers expressed their gratitude to Minister of Foreign Affairs of Kyrgyzstan E. Abdyldaev and the Kyrgyz side for the successful organization of the five-sided meeting.

The participants adopted a joint statement following the meeting.

 “The Qazaq Times”