OREANDA-NEWS. January 26, 2009. Ashgabat will host the international conference The Reliable and Stable Transit of Energy and Its Role in Ensuring the Sustainable Development and International Cooperation on April 23-24, 2009. Viewed from the very beginning as an event of global importance and secured in the United Nations Resolutions the coming forum is to be another important step towards developing the international dialogue aimed at tackling such an urgent problem of the modern world as energy security.

A new vector of this collaboration was defined by President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov who had put forward the initiative to elaborate the special international convention aimed at strengthening the political and legal framework of international energy cooperation particularly on construction and operation of transnational pipelines and energy, transport and communication infrastructure.

It means to elaborate a new effective mechanism enabling to ensure the implementation of the international agreements on production and consumption of energy resources, transportation to international markets including the bilateral intergovernmental agreements and large-scale transnational energy projects including Turkmenistan-China gas pipeline under construction, the Caspian gas pipeline and the future Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India pipeline project.

Speaking at the recent sitting of the Cabinet of Ministers of Turkmenistan President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov said that Turkmenistan stood for transit of energy that depended in no way on the political, economic and other problems spontaneously emerging worldwide. The national leader said that the Turkmen state aimed to build the global system of cooperation meeting the common interests and based on financial viability and healthy competition. These endeavours should have the reliable legal foundation.

The urgency of the Turkmen leader’s idea of enhancing the international political and legal guarantees of security of energy transportation facilities is vividly proved by the UN Resolution on the Reliable and Stable Transit of Energy and Its Role in Ensuring the Sustainable Development and International Cooperation that was put on the agenda of the 63rd session of the United Nations General Assembly on the initiative of Turkmenistan. About 60 states coauthored this document unanimously approved by 192 states – the permanent members of the UN Security Council, Austria, Germany, Armenia, Georgia, Belarus, Moldova, Ukraine and others.

The topicality of the Ashgabat energy forum is conditioned by the global financial and economic, jumps in prices on energy market and the precedent of transit of Russian gas to Ukraine

During the recent meetings with President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov a high-ranking official of the United Nations Alexey Tikhomirov and First Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation Andrey Denisov highly appreciated Turkmenistan’s initiatives on energy security and profound contribution to wide international cooperation. The guests emphasized that the Ashgabat energy forum would be a landmark enhancing global efforts to maintain peace, stability and security.