The event was attended by President of Uzbekistan H.E. Shavkat Mirziyoyev, President of Afghanistan H.E. Ashraf Ghani, Prime Minister of Pakistan H.E. Imran Khan, 37 foreign ministers, heads of the world’s leading international and regional organizations as well as global financial institutions and companies, leading research and think tanks, and over 180 representatives of business circles from 44 countries of the world.
In his welcoming remarks, the President of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev stressed the need to strengthen confidence and good-neighbourliness in the Central Asia and South Asia subregion,the creation of stable trade, economic, transport and communication ties, ensuring security and stability, as well as support for a peaceful settlement in Afghanistan.
The President of Uzbekistan voiced a number of proposals for cooperation in Central and South Asia, including the building of modern, efficient and safe transport corridors and logistics infrastructure, mainly the Termez - Mazar-i-Sharif - Kabul - Peshawar railway, holding an annual interregional forum to discuss topical issues of expanding the economic agenda of cooperation, and implementation of digital platforms and stimulation of "green" development, among others.
During the plenary and breakout sessions of the forum, participants discussed the opportunities for promoting initiatives to enhance peace and security, developing trade, economic, transport, communication, cultural and humanitarian cooperation in the context of further deepening regional connectivity.
In his speech, the Turkic Council Secretary General Baghdad Amreyev emphasized that the timely initiatives that President Mirziyoyev has announced would undoubtedly contribute to enhancing the regional connectivity in this region and the entire world and lead to closer interaction between Central and South Asia, filling the interregional agenda with specific actions of a strategic nature in the emerging new model of global supply chains.
Underlining coherence of the conference's topics with the current agenda items of the Turkic Council, Secretary General expressed support to the initiatives to ensure interregional connectivity by involving the private sector and enhancing public-private partnerships with well-developed and interconnected hard and soft transport infrastructure projects.
Secretary General noted that the conference was being held in an extremely challenging moment, adding that we must be ready to effectively tackle all these challenges by joint efforts and concerted actions of not only the subregion’s countries but also the whole world with the leading global powers and show greater responsibility in this issue.
Highlighting the contribution of the conference in the creation of a very constructive atmosphere, which could shape a new paradigm of international cooperation towards inclusive interregional development, Secretary General Amreyev concluded that for achieving the common goals, it is essential to maintain and continue this Tashkent atmosphere, characterizing it as the "Tashkent spirit".
In the framework of the conference, Secretary General met with Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of Kazakhstan H.E. Mukhtar Tleuberdi, the Deputy Chairman of the Cabinet Ministers, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Turkmenistan H.E. Rashid Meredov, Foreign Minister of Turkey H.E. Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu and Foreign Minister of Tajikistan H.E. Sirojiddin Muhriddin and Foreign Minister of Bangladesh H.E. Abul Kalam Abdul Momen.
He also had talks with Special Representative, Head of the UN Regional Centre for Preventive Diplomacy for Central Asia (UNRCCA) Natalia Gherman and Executive Director of Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA) Kairat Sarybay.
On the sidelines of the forum, delegations attended the opening ceremony of the International Institute of Central Asia (IICA), which is designed to serve as a platform for expert discussion of the prospects for regional cooperation and the development of proposals for multilateral projects in various fields.
