Chairman-in-Office praises Georgian counter-terrorism efforts

TBILISI, 7 March 2002 - In the course of a four-day visit to the South Caucasus, the OSCE Chairman-in-Office (CiO), Portugal's Foreign Minister Jaime Gama, paid an official visit to Georgia, on 5 and 6 March. The main purpose of his trip to the sub-region was to reinforce dialogue in order to find possible solutions to conflicts arising from the collapse of the USSR in 1991.

During his stay, he flew to the OSCE monitoring base at Shatili, near the border with the Russian Federation, to acquaint himself with the activities of the OSCE border monitors. After the flight, the CiO commended the work of the OSCE monitors, who are observing the Chechen and Ingush sections of the Georgian-Russian Federation border. He characterized it as an important contribution to conflict prevention and stability in the region.

The CiO commended Georgia for its efforts in the field of counter-terrorism. "The OSCE stands ready to continue to support Georgia. Moreover, a particular focus of the activities of the OSCE in the future will be on combating drug trafficking and the salvage of radioactive sources, as they might be used by terrorists for their criminal purposes", he said.

"Having asked the US for assistance in development of the armed forces, Georgia did more within the anti-terror coalition than others did with their rhetoric", he added.

Foreign Minister Gama also stressed the value to the international community of the Co-operation Programme which is underway in Georgia, to locate nuclear batteries from the old Soviet era that could be used to produce atomic bombs. This programme was very important because there might exist a risk of this material falling into the hands of terrorists.

During his visit, the CiO met with the Georgian President, Edvard Shevardnadze and Minister of Foreign Affairs, Irakli Menagarishvili, and other senior government officials.

Afterwards, Foreign Minister Gama visited Azerbaijan, meeting President Heydar Aliyev, the Prime Minister, Artur Rasizadeh, and the Foreign Minister, Vilayat Guliyev.