UN can play important role in Afghan settlement -- Pres.

23/9 Tass


UNITED NATIONS, September 23 (Itar-Tass) - UN can play an important
role in the cause of peace settlement in Afghanistan, Turkmenistani
President Gurbanguly Berdimuhammedow said Wednesday as he took the floor
at the UN General Assembly session in the framework of a general political
discussion.

"It's the UN with its huge peacekeeping experience and top-rank moral
authority that can offer new forms and models in the context of political
and diplomatic efforts to resolve Afghanistan's problems and impose peace
and concord in that country," Berdimuhammedow said.
"This kind of activity can be stepped up and become more efficacious
today, if one takes account of the opportunities of UN's Center for
Preventive Diplomacy in Central Asia," he said.
"Turkmenistan speaks in favor of a broader and more precisely targeted
involvement of the Center in the international efforts to normalize the
situation in Afghanistan," he said.
"Turkmenistani government attaches significance to Afghanistan's
revival, to the establishing of solid peace and to construction of social
and humanitarian facilities there," Berdimuhammedow said.
"We'd like to see Afghanistan as a peaceful and flourishing country, a
good neighbor and a partners for all states in the region," he indicated.
Turkmenistani President also focused on the problems of energy
security, saying among other things that his administration supports the
idea of setting up an expert group under the UN auspices to draft an
international legal document on transits of energy resources that would
take account of proposals of the countries concerned and international
organizations.
He recalled that a high-level conference was held in Turkmenistan's
capital Ashgabat in April. It discussed reliable and steady transits of
energy resources and their role in ensuring sustained development and
international cooperation.
One of the results of that conference was a proposal to ask the UN to
consider an expert group on transits.
"Turkmenistan is ready to assist the formation of a group of that kind
in the UN framework and it urges all the countries concerned to formulate
their proposals for its work," Berdimuhammedow said.
"The setting up of the group might kick off work on a major UN
document aimed at ensuring the efficient functioning of the international
system of energy resource supplies, including the protection of throughput
systems," he said.
Energy security is a most demanding element of general global
security, since the existing system of international resource supplies has
turned into a vulnerable soft spot of global economy, Berdimuhammedow said.
"This vulnerability stems from a range of factors, like political
instability in some parts of the globe, the absence of commonly
acknowledged regulatory mechanisms, infrastructure insufficiency, and
inconsistent geography of supply routes," he said.
"That's why it's necessary to change the situation, to eliminate the
inertia of stereotype thinking, and to attain a new level of mentality
that would match today's requirements," Berdimuhammedow said.
"The case in hand is a new universal model of relations in the global
energy space," he said. "It's based on a multifaceted analysis of ideas
and concepts regarding the architecture of global energy security and
recognition of long-term benefits of cooperation."
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