OSCE seminar in Turkmenistan aimed at preventing terrorists crossing borders
A two-day seminar focusing on the use of a technologically advanced passport verification system, the International Civil Aviation Organization’ Public Key Directory (ICAO PKD), concluded in Ashgabat on 20 May 2015.
The workshop brought together representatives from Turkmenistan’s aviation security, migration, and border agencies to get acquainted with the multilateral technical platform enabling to effectively validate electronic security features stored in the biometric passport.
“Biometric passports with chips are a major step towards making it harder for terrorists and criminals to forge travel documents,” said Simon Deignan, of the OSCE Transnational Threats Department. “It is essential that border control officials can prove quickly and efficiently that the chip has not been tampered with. The ICAO PKD enables exactly this”.
The event was organized by the OSCE Transnational Threats Department/Action against Terrorism Unit, in co-operation with the OSCE Centre in Ashgabat.
Since the adoption of the OSCE Ministerial Council Decision in 2009 on the promotion of ICAO PKD, similar workshops were held in Uzbekistan, Moldova, Kyrgyzstan, Albania and Armenia. Tajikistan and Kazakhstan are also scheduled to host a seminar from this series in the near future.
Ministerial Council Decision on the ICAO PKD: //www.osce.org/cio/40706
OSCE Travel Document Security Programme: //www.osce.org/atu/73637