OREANDA-NEWS. March 11, 2009. The Central Asia and Global Challenges of Our Time international seminar is opened in Ashgabat.

The specialists of the ministries of foreign affairs, international experts and political scientists from the EU member states and Central Asian countries arrived in the Turkmen capital to take part in the forum conducted on the initiative of the UN Regional Centre for Preventive Diplomacy in Central Asia (UNRCCA). Such an authoritative representation at the forum vividly illustrates the increased interest in the Central Asian region which has the huge resource, political and economic potential and plays an important role on the international arena. The urgent problems hampering the regional peace and development processes require immediate attention. This seminar is aimed at designing the common approaches to tackling global challenges of the modern world. The seminar agenda focuses on energy and environmental security.

Commenting upon the meeting Miroslav Jenca, UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative, Head of the United Nations Regional Centre for Preventive Diplomacy for Central Asia (noted that its major aim – to identify the urgent problems threatening stability and security in the region.

Putting emphasis on the significance of this meeting and the topics under discussion Miroslav Jenca said that it had symbolically coincided with the jubilee, 10th ECO Summit Meeting in Tehran. “In spite of different format of the meetings I think the ECO summit will considerably contribute to improving international cooperation and promote stability in the region that is a key objective of the UN Regional Center.”

Focusing on the need to concert efforts with the largest international organisations as well as the governments in the region the Head of the UN Regional Centre said that the meeting of the Central Asian leaders heads in Bishkek last October had demonstrated the common endeavours to maintain the transparent, sincere dialogue and the readiness to discuss the ways to solve the urgent problems including the use of transboundary waters.

The agenda of the two-day forum closely complies with the priorities of Turkmenistan’s foreign policy strategy prioritizing the development of wide international co-operation particularly with the neighbouring countries. Highly appreciating Turkmenistan’s contribution to stabilizing the situation in Afghanistan the Head of the UN Regional Centre noted that during his recent trip to Kabul he had received evidence that the Afghani people valued friendship with Turkmenistan which supplied electric power to Afghanistan and actively collaborated in construction of the social facilities in the country.

Discussing the priorities of co-operation in the interests of global peace and sustainable development the participants specified the priority aims and objectives guiding the activities of the UN Centre for Preventive Diplomacy. The reports presented at the forum will be compiled in the special book and published in the near future.