SPEECH BY H.E. MR. AL? BABACAN, ON THE OCCASION OF THE ...

More documents

Recommendations

Info

economy. Once we achieve our set goals, I am confident that the existing figures will continue rising. In keeping with this, organizing in the near future the BSEC Business Forum and the Meeting of the Ministers of Trade will surely make valuable contributions to our trade cooperation, as well. Esteemed Colleagues, We have been trying to initiate a thematic approach in the work of BSEC, in the sense of establishing practical cooperation on certain issues of common concern or interest such as climate change, achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and combating organized crime. These are areas where increased cooperation was envisaged in the Istanbul Summit Declaration as well. We believe that there is ample opportunity in the BSEC region for active and meaningful cooperation in these spheres, which will consolidate the culture of multilateralism in our region. For example, we can have scientific meetings on climate change in the near future to study its consequences in the BSEC region and take collective action to tackle the challenges it poses. Likewise, we may conduct a detailed study on MDGs to see to what extent these goals have been achieved and are being pursued in our region and establish feasible modalities of cooperation in areas where Member States have shortcomings. With regard to combating organized crime, a joint meeting was organized in Istanbul two weeks ago between BSEC and the relevant UN bodies to fight human trafficking in the region. This meeting is considered as the contribution of BSEC to the forthcoming international forum against human trafficking which will be held in Vienna, in 2008. In the sphere of the fight against organized crime, training courses and seminars on organized crime investigation
techniques were provided by Turkish authorities for the experts and security forces of BSEC Member States. At a time when the nexus between terrorism and organized crime has emerged as a major threat to national, regional and international security and stability, I would like to particularly emphasize the importance of a firm resolve and cooperation to fight against them, in compliance with the relevant resolutions and decisions of the UN Security Council and our international obligations in this sphere. Distinguished Colleagues, During our BSEC Chairmanship, Undersecretaries and Deputy Ministers of the Ministries of Education of Member States came together to exchange views on how to further our cooperation in the area of education and contacts among higher educational institutions. Among other events, in the area of institutional renewal and good governance, we hosted a seminar on regulatory impact analysis, simplification and reduction of red-tape in BSEC countries. One of the objectives of our Chairmanship was to establish a common spirit of friendship and cooperation. To contribute to this objective, we organized “The First Black Sea Games” in the Black Sea coastal cities of Turkey. This event has shown that the peoples of BSEC countries can come together and contribute to successful social events. Our subsequent aim should be to extend this sort of public-to-public contact to other areas of cooperation within BSEC. In this framework, a special responsibility rests also with the local authorities and civil society organizations in our countries. One such event organized by Turkish NGOs took place just before the Istanbul Summit. We
Page 1 and 2: SPEECH BY H.E. MR. ALİ BABACAN, ON
Page 3: Distinguished Colleagues, One of th

SPEECH BY H.E. MR. AL? BABACAN, ON THE OCCASION OF THE ...

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?