News and press releases

VIENNA, 3 June 2022 – Following-up on discussions held at the Stockholm Ministerial Council, participants at today’s special OSCE Asian Partners for Co-operation Group discussion looked into several aspects of a framework for a response to the implications of Afghanistan for the OSCE region. The meeting was convened by the Swedish Chair of the Group. It particularly highlighted gender-related aspects of the regional consequences of developments in Afghanistan, and how the situation in Afghanistan has affected young women and men in Central Asia.

On 31 May, the OSCE Programme Office in Bishkek held a round table to discuss the results of the study “Violence against Women in Politics in Kyrgyzstan”- the first one ever conducted in the host state. The study was conducted from November 2021 to January 2022 by the non-governmental organization "Agency for Social Technologies", with the support of the OSCE Programme Office in Bishkek and the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR).

On 30 May 2022, the OSCE Project Co-ordinator in Uzbekistan (PCUz) in co-operation with the Ministry of Preschool Education, the Ministry of Sports Development and the Cycling Federation organized a cycling marathon in Samarkand to promote sustainable green development and improve environmental awareness.

Countering the illicit financial flows linked with Afghan opiates trafficking was at the centre of a meeting by the Expert Working Group of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime’s (UNODC) Paris Pact Initiative hosted by the OSCE on 30 May 2022.

BRUSSELS / GENEVA / VIENNA, 30 May 2022- The Co-Chairs of the Geneva International Discussions (GID), UN Representative Cihan Sultanoğlu, Special Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office Viorel Moșanu, and EU Special Representative Toivo Klaar are currently undertaking a round of consultations with all GID participants starting on 30 May. These consultations are primarily aimed at exchanging views on recent developments related to security and humanitarian issues on the ground and to permit the Co-Chairs to gain a comprehensive understanding of the positions of the participants. They will focus as well on the timing and modalities of the next GID round.

Countering emerging threats posed by the illicit trafficking of cultural property was the focus of a three-day national workshop, organized by the OSCE Transnational Threats Department, Border Security and Management Unit, in close co-ordination with national customs officials in Vilnius, Lithuania.

The OSCE Programme Office in Dushanbe strengthened the skills of the officers of Tajikistan’s Defence Ministry (MoD) on explosive ordnance disposal. Train-the-trainer course on Explosive Ordnance Disposal (level 3) allowed the participants to acquired new knowledge and refresh their skills on how to detect, identify, recover, disarm and dispose unsafe explosive ordnance in minefields and battlefields.