CLOSING REMARKS

CLOSING REMARKS BY H.E. MR.G. ZANDANSHATAR, MP,

MINISTER FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS AND TRADE OF MONGOLIA

AT THE 2011 OSCE-MONGOLIA CONFERENCE “ON ENHANCING OSCE CO-OPERATION WITH THE ASIAN PARTNERS IN ADDRESSING COMMON CHALLENGES THROUGH A COMPREHENSIVE APPROACH TO SECURITY”

Ulaanbaatar, 24 May 2011

Honorable Deputy Foreign Minister Evaldas Ignatavičius,

Distinguished participants,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is my privilege to bring this remarkable Conference to an end. Indeed I am in a belief that it is not end but a launch of a new stage in expanding OSCE and its Asian Partners interaction for addressing common challenges of security in this ever growing era of globalization.

Over these two days, it has been heartening to see how participants have intensively worked to exchange views, analyze the current state and put forward a set of recommendations for strengthening synergies in responding to transnational threats, intensifying international economic co-operation, in particular on transport and energy security, and the role of human rights, fundamental freedoms and rule of law in promoting comprehensive security. We have heard new ideas and policy recommendations on how to strengthen the co-operative security through joint efforts by OSCE and its Asian Partners for Cooperation. I am encouraged by your willingness to share and openly discuss actions, experiences and challenges.

It is my pleasure to recall Mr. Fritch’s remarks on promoting co-operation between landlocked countries. Indeed, as he highlighted, transport and trade facilitation across the Eurasia can yield wide ranging benefits not only for the landlocked states, but for all countries.

Having underlined that economic and environmental issues are at the core of comprehensive security, Mr. Svilanovic proved us that we are looking at one direction.

I warmly welcome the EU’s strong belief in the importance of addressing the present and future challenges in the human dimension within the framework of our Asian Partnership with special focus on freedom of media which is prioritized by the European Union within the OSCE.

I want to reiterate that Mongolia, alongside our fellow Asian Partners, has a strong basis for building relations with the OSCE. We have demonstrated that the Asian Partners have common challenges and, most importantly, the same interests and vision to overcome them. Thus, today’s conference I am in hope has helped us in working out a workable module to implement our common vision. I believe that you received valuable inputs about East Asia in general during the Conference as well. It is clear that our fellow Asian Partners all pointed out the needs the OSCE’s rich experience to be taken as a model in the region.

Active communication and exchange of information between Asian Partners for Co-operation will be very useful for strengthening our relations among Partners as well as with Participating States and will facilitate to OSCE’s partnership mechanism.

Taking this opportunity, I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to those who actively participated yesterday in the Side event on Afghanistan capacity building. The planned training program for Afghan diplomats will be part of our modest contribution to the Afghan capacity building. We will make sure that your precious inputs will be incorporated into the program and we are confident that this will result in very favorable experience for the associated parties. My special thanks go to colleagues from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Afghanistan for their informative presentation on capacity building, which allowed us to have a look at capacity building-related policy, activities and needs of Afghanistan.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

The co-organizers of this Conference would like to take this opportunity to thank all the participants, especially those who took time to travel a long distance and made their tangible contributions in making this event practically useful and successful. It once again shown that united we are effective.

With this, I now declare the “Mongolia-OSCE Conference formally closed.

Have a safe journey back home.

Thank you for your participation.