Support for Kazakhstan's OSCE bid

BRUSSELS, 4 December Goran Lennmarker, President of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, opening the 14th annual meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers of the OSCE member states in Brussels, has stated that he supports Kazakhstan's bid for the OSCE chairmanship in 2009, Kazakhstan Today correspondent reports.


"I fully support Kazakhstan's bid for the OSCE chairmanship in 2009," - Mr. Lennmarker has said.


Moreover, he has observed that "the OSCE has univocally recommended Almaty as a place for the 17th annual meeting of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly in 2008."


"The Parliamentary Assembly believes that carrying out the annual meeting in Kazakhstan will help to fully involve the Central Asian countries into the OSCE activities," - a distributed press release says.


The 14th annual meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers of the OSCE member states has opened today, December 4, in Brussels. During two days delegations from 68 countries and representatives of international organisations chief problems of modernity, such as the settlement of conflicts, respect of human rights, traffic in human beings, transparent elections, and so on, as well as the OSCE priorities.


Kazakhstan is represented at the conference by the head of the delegation Kassymzhomart Tokayev, Foreign Minister of Kazakhstan, Rakhat Aliyev, First Vice Foreign Minister, Dulat Kuanyshev, Permanent Representative of Kazakhstan in the OSCE, Konstantin Zhigalov, Ambassador of Kazakhstan to the Kingdom of Belgium. In total the official delegation consists of 17 persons.


Kazakhstan's bid for the OSCE chairmanship in 2009 will be discussed at the 14th annual meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers of the OSCE member states.