Uzbekistan's new multilateral diplomacy: cooperation for peace and stability

The President of the Republic of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev in his Address to the Oliy Majlis identified the main directions of development in key areas, paying particular attention to the foreign policy aspects of reforming and modernizing the country.
In particular, the need to intensify cooperation with countries of the world, including on regional and international platforms to effectively counter regional and global security challenges and threats, was emphasized.
Following the chosen course, Uzbekistan currently implements 25 programs to further enhance cooperation with international organizations. Thus, constructive activities are expanding within the United Nations, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the Commonwealth of Independent States and other multilateral structures. In 2020, for the first time in many years, Uzbekistan took over the chairmanship of the CIS, which testifies to the country's desire to intensify cooperation within the Commonwealth. New opportunities for the republic are opened by its entry into the Cooperation Council of Turkic-speaking states.
The President of Uzbekistan during his speeches at the UN, CIS, SCO, CICA, CCTS, and the second Consultative Meeting of the Heads of State of Central Asia (CWGG) promotes initiatives aimed at improving the security situation.
One of the key areas of these initiatives is the transformation of Central Asia into a zone of stability, sustainable development and good neighborliness. In the framework of the new regional policy initiated by the President of Uzbekistan, a special place was taken by efforts to strengthen mutual trust and develop mechanisms for bilateral and regional cooperation. Priority is given to resolving on the basis of mutual consideration of the interests of the problems that have accumulated in the region, such as demarcation and delimitation of state borders, distribution of water resources and others.
An important mechanism for the development of regional cooperation was the holding of Consultative Meetings of Central Asian Heads of State on the initiative put forward by President Shavkat Mirziyoyev in 2017 at the 72nd session of the UN General Assembly. In November 2019, the second meeting in a similar format was held in Tashkent. The leaders of all five countries of the region took part in it, which became possible for the first time in many years. The decisions taken made it possible to give the summits of the heads of state regular character and to reach agreement on the establishment of annual consultative meetings. The next summit will be held in Kyrgyzstan in 2020.
Uzbekistan's new regional approach creates favorable conditions for reducing security threats in Central Asia. In particular, today most of the state border of Uzbekistan is actually delimited, work is underway to demarcate it, more than 60 checkpoints are fully operational, railway and air links with the countries of the region have been established. Positive dynamics was also observed in the settlement of water problems. This is facilitated by the work of bilateral working groups created in November 2016 for cooperation in water resources management.
Evidence of wide international recognition of the new atmosphere of trust and good neighborliness in Central Asia was the adoption in 2018 at the initiative of the Uzbek side of the UN General Assembly resolution "Strengthening regional and international cooperation to ensure peace, stability and sustainable development in the Central Asian region."
The promotion of stabilization and reconciliation in Afghanistan continues to be the focus of Uzbekistan’s foreign policy. The country's leadership clearly understands the principle “Afghanistan’s security is the security of Uzbekistan”, in connection with which Tashkent stands for fulfilling the key conditions for a political settlement - non-violence, ceasefire, demonstration of readiness for dialogue and compromise.
In his speeches at meetings of the UN General Assembly, SCO, CICA, and KVGG summits, President Shavkat Mirziyoyev repeatedly put forward the idea of involving the IRA in regional trade and economic relations and proposed developing approaches to implement the most important infrastructure and social projects in Afghanistan.
A significant contribution to regional security and stability was made in March 2018 by the High-Level International Conference on Afghanistan “Peace Process, Security Cooperation and Regional Cooperation”. The forum resulted in the adoption of the Tashkent Declaration, which was circulated as an official document of the 72nd session of the General Assembly and the UN Security Council and secured a strong consensus at the regional and global levels on the need for an early start of direct negotiations between the Government of Afghanistan and the Taliban without any any preconditions.
Thus, the initiatives of Uzbekistan contributed to the development of the process of peaceful settlement of the Afghan crisis and the conclusion on February 29 this year in Doha (Qatar) of a peace agreement between the United States and the Taliban. Today, all over the world, they hope that this document can lay the foundation for intra-Afghan national reconciliation.
An important component of the efforts of Tashkent in the Afghan direction is also the active participation in the work of almost all international forums devoted to the Afghan problem. Among them are the Kabul Process, the Moscow Format, the Heart of Asia - Istanbul Process forum, the International Contact Group on Afghanistan, the SCO - Afghanistan Contact Group, and the Regional Economic Cooperation Conference on Afghanistan (REKKA).
Uzbekistan is actively working on the practical implementation of initiatives to promote the socio-economic reconstruction of Afghanistan. The country is a reliable partner of Afghanistan in the field of trade, development of transport infrastructure, electricity supplies, and education. In May 2019, the Uzbekistan-Afghanistan border trade zone opened in the Surkhandarya region. The Khairaton-Mazar-i-Sharif railway is functioning, the projects for the construction of the Mazar-i-Sharif-Herat and Mazar-i-Sharif-Kabul-Peshawar railroads are being worked out. Currently, the Surkhan-Puli-Khumri power line is under construction, which will connect Kabul to the unified energy system of Central Asia. At the initiative of President Shavkat Mirziyoyev, an educational center for training Afghan citizens was created in Termez. In 2020, about 200 people will study on a preferential basis. In the future, it is planned to increase the number of students to 300, as well as expanding the areas of education.
Against the backdrop of the growing terrorist threat around the world, the leadership of Uzbekistan is also in favor of intensifying cooperation to minimize these challenges and threats. As was repeatedly noted by the head of state, young people are most affected by destructive ideologies. In this regard, the formation of favorable conditions for realizing the potential of youth and expanding access to quality education is of particular importance. An achievement in this regard was the adoption at the initiative of Uzbekistan in December 2018 of a special resolution of the UN General Assembly on “Education and religious tolerance”. At present, the International Convention on the Rights of Youth is also being developed, within the framework of the SCO, a joint appeal of the heads of state of the organization to youth and a program of action to implement its provisions have been adopted.
At the summit of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia (CICA) in 2019, the leader of Uzbekistan drew attention to the need to establish a systemic dialogue on the issues of maintaining inter-religious harmony, enlightenment and cultural mutual enrichment. It was proposed to use the Center of Islamic Civilization in Tashkent and the International Research Center of Imam Bukhari in Samarkand as sites.
During his speeches at the second Consultative Meeting of the Heads of State of Central Asia, SCO summits, the CCTS and from other venues of international structures, the President of Uzbekistan repeatedly spoke about the need to deepen cooperation between law enforcement agencies and special services in the fight against terrorist and extremist threats. And today, on the initiative of Uzbekistan, the issue of creating working mechanisms for the operational interaction of law enforcement agencies and special services of our countries to fully counter modern challenges and threats is being worked out.
As part of the chairmanship of Uzbekistan in the CIS, an Interstate program of joint measures to combat crime for 2019-2023 and a program for cooperation of the CIS member states in the fight against terrorism and other violent manifestations of extremism for 2020-2022 are being developed.
Confronting environmental threats is another important area of international cooperation, which has a direct impact on achieving sustainable development and the success of ongoing reforms. As you know, today the drying of the Aral Sea and its consequences are a global catastrophe. To solve this problem, in November 2018, at the initiative of the Uzbek side, the UN Multi-Partnership Trust Fund for Human Security was created for the Aral Sea region. Norway has allocated 1 million 200 thousand euros to finance the projects of the Fund, 5 million 200 thousand euros by the European Union.
In 2018, during the summit of the International Fund for Saving the Aral Sea, the head of Uzbekistan put forward initiatives to create a zone of environmental innovations and technologies in the Aral Sea region, establish a Regional Center for growing seedlings of desert and fodder plants, and create transboundary protected natural areas in the Aral Sea zone.
In 2019, at the initiative of Uzbekistan, the UN General Assemblies adopted a special resolution declaring the Aral Sea region a zone of environmental innovation and technology. In the framework of the State program to improve the environmental situation in this zone in 2019, perennial plants were planted on an area of more than 460 thousand hectares. In 2020, they plan to sow 700 thousand hectares.
A proactive foreign policy is widely supported by the international community. As a result, the position of Uzbekistan in the system of international relations is strengthened, which, as a result, leads to a more effective expansion of practical interaction with partners and the promotion of national interests.
The most important goal of all the initiatives of Uzbekistan is to create conditions for sustainable and stable development of the country, the Central Asian region and enhance international cooperation.