Chairman-in-Office raises prospect of extending OSCE co-operation with Afghanistan

KABUL, 10 April 2004 - After visiting the five OSCE Central Asian States, the Chairman-in-Office of the OSCE, Bulgarian Foreign Minister Solomon Passy, flew into Kabul today and discussed possible areas of co-operation between the Organization and Afghanistan.

In meetings with President Hamid Karzai and his Foreign Minister, Abdullah Abdullah, the Chairman-in-Office first praised the progress he saw in the country: "Since my last visit 18 months ago, I can see this change in the streets and on the faces of people. The signs of irreversible progress are everywhere and I congratulate the Government and people of Afghanistan on this achievement."

In discussing possible OSCE activities with Afghanistan, which has been an OSCE Partner for Co-operation since April last year, Minister Passy mentioned election assistance, police training, border management and anti-trafficking measures, as well as the promotion of regional co-operation with the States of Central Asia.

He said that with parliamentary elections due to take place in September this year, the OSCE's Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights could, if requested and agreed, offer its "wealth of experience in preparing and monitoring voting processes in many parts of the OSCE, such as Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Georgia."

The Chairman-in-Office cautioned that assistance to Afghanistan would depend on consensus being reached among the 55 participating States: "However, we must make a start at some point and I look forward to hearing proposals from Afghanistan, which the OSCE will then be able to consider."

Minister Passy also mentioned that one major priority of his visit had been to stimulate the development of regional co-operation among the OSCE Central Asian States and Afghanistan.

He recalled that a week earlier, he had opened a ministerial education conference in Tashkent, co-organized by the Chairmanship: "I intend to invite Afghanistan to participate in a follow-up event, planned for Sofia".

The Minister, who had flown in the morning into Kabul from Ashgabad, later left for Sofia at the end of a week-long trip which had also taken in stops in Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan.