ASTANA, Kazakhstan , December 3 /PRNewswire/ -- Kazakhstan will become a member of the OSCE Troika in 2009, before taking the chairmanship of the organization in 2010. This new position within the organization will put the central Asian country at the center of the 16th OSCE Ministerial Council that takes place in Helsinki on the 4th and 5th of November 2008 . Kazakhstan was the collective candidate of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and the first ever elected candidate from a former Soviet Union country.
(Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20081203/330706 )
The OSCE Chairmanship is a logical result of Kazakhstan's 16 years of independent political and economic development and according to Marat Tazhin, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Kazakhstan , "its origins can be traced back to the address made by President Nursultan Nazarbayev at the OSCE Lisbon Summit in 1996."
At the Helsinki meeting, Minister Tazhin should emphasize the necessity to find a better balance between the three dimensions of the OSCE - Human Rights, Security, Economy - and to relieve the Organization from accusations of selectivity and application of double standards. In order to prepare Kazakhstan's chairmanship and prove the country's genuine involvement towards the OSCE's democratic values, Minister Tazhin's government introduced a package of reforms aimed at developing a multiparty system, liberalizing political parties' activity and democratizing the media legislation.
Another direction that Kazakhstan wants to follow in the context of its future chairmanship is the promotion of an equal political dialogue between civilizations; the country's capital Astana hosted a conference (last October) titled 'Common World: Progress Through Diversity' that gathered together more than 50 Foreign Ministers from both the Muslim and the Western world.
Kazakhstan also elaborated a State programme called 'Path to Europe ' to bring relations with European countries to the level of strategic partnership, to actively employ European models to improve Kazakh laws, and to attract advanced technologies and expertise in management and institutional evolution.
All these initiatives clearly show that Kazakhstan is committed to a programme of liberalization, democratization and change in accordance with the principles on which the OSCE is built.
As the OSCE chairmanship rotates annually, the Chairman-in-Office (CiO) is assisted by the previous and succeeding Chairpersons to assure continuity of the Organization's activities. Together, the three CiOs - present, past and future - form the OSCE Troika. In 2009 the Troika consists of Greece , Finland and Kazakhstan .
Contact: Greg Delaney +33-1-42964600 greg.delaney@group-ibc.com http://www.kazakhstanlive.comSOURCE Government of Kazakhstan
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