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Secretary General: Date of GUAM Foreign Ministerial Council's next meeting not defined

Politics Materials 23 August 2011 16:12 (UTC +04:00)

Azerbaijan, Baku, Aug. 23 / Trend E.Tariverdiyeva /

Date of the next meeting of the GUAM Foreign Ministerial Council within the framework of 66th session of UN General Assembly has not yet determined, GUAM Secretary General Valery Chechelashvili told Trend.

The issue delays, as it is not clear what level of delegation will represent Moldova and who will chair the GUAM at the UN General Assembly, under which the Foreign Ministerial Council traditionally takes place, he said.

"However, I can say that at least two meetings of the GUAM Foreign Ministerial Council will be held. One of them will be held in Moldova, as the country chairs the organization, and the second - under the OSCE ministerial meeting in Vilnius in early December. Perhaps, the third meeting will be held in New York, but it is not exactly yet," Chechelashvili said.

He said, as traditionally, the agenda of the next meeting of the GUAM Foreign Ministerial Council will consist of three blocs. The first bloc deals with political cooperation of the GUAM countries and second - sectoral cooperation, which would address both new and traditional projects.

The GUAM countries' cooperation actively develops in the field of tourism, economy and trade, transport and combating organized crime and, more recently - in the struggle with the consequences of emergencies, Chechelashvili said.

"We also have interesting perspectives in the energy sector. All these issues will be mulled in the sectoral cooperation bloc in accordance with the recommendations that were developed at meetings of the working groups," he said.

The traditional third block deals with the organizational issues, Chechelashvili said.
"The ministers should approve the audit reports on the GUAM budget for 2010 and decide on the budget for 2011, consider all the issues that the countries may deem appropriate to raise at the meeting," Chechelashvili added.

GUAM was established by Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine in 1997 during the EU presidential summit in Strasbourg. In 1999, Uzbekistan joined the organization, and left four years later. A decision was made to announce GUAM as an international organization under the new name, "Organization for Democracy and Economic Development - GUAM," at the organization's first summit in Kiev in 2006.

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