The 12^th Meeting of the ECO Council of Ministers Launched in Istanbul

Press Release

            His Excellency Seyed Mojtaba Arastou, ECO Secretary General, took part in the Twelfth Meeting of the ECO Council of Ministers.  In his statement addressing the ECO Foreign Ministers Mr. Arastou referred to his comprehensive report on the ECO ongoing activities and projects, submitted previously and said that there are some strong and weak points on the way of achieving ECO goals and objectives and asked the Honourable Ministers to provide the Organization with remedial measures.

            Referring to the important developments taken place since the 11^th COM Meeting in Dushanbe in May 2001, he pointed out that the return of rule of law and normalcy in Afghanistan is the most important development of all and the country is now ready to play its due role as a crucial link in the revival of the centuries old trading link between China, Central-Asia, and South-Asia.  He emphasized that Afghanistan can re-emerge as a bridge between the land-locked countries and the coastal states of ECO. 

            The issue of reconstruction of Afghanistan is among the important agenda items of the 12^th COM.

            ECO Secretary General briefing the ECO Foreign Ministers on the ongoing activities in the priority areas of the Organization, referred to the activities in the field of transport and communications and mentioned the 4^th ECO Ministerial Meeting on Transport and Communications recently held in Izmir which reviewed the implementation of the Program of Action for the ECO Decade of Transport and Communications (1998-2007).  He also stated that, the Organization is seriously engaged in creating an infrastructure, capable of having access to the global markets by shortening the routs.  He said that, in this regard, a three pronged approached has been actively pursued to achieve the goal which aims to a) building physical infrastructure, b) Creating an enabling environment for intra-regional trade and c)  Building institutional capacity for ECO in its Secretariat and within the Member States.  He also referred to the running of container train from Istanbul to Almaty, as one of the major achievements of the Organization so far and announced that it is expected that the regular run of the passenger train would start from October this year.

            Mr. Arastou in his statement also referred to the activities and achievements in the other priority areas such as trade and investment, energy, agriculture, health and environment.

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