EU/Kirgisen

The Coop­er­a­tion Coun­cil between the Euro­pean Union (EU) and the Kyr­gyz Repub­lic held its eleventh meet­ing on Tues­day, 23 Feb­ru­ary 2010. Mr Ángel Losa­da Tor­res-Queve­do, Span­ish Sec­re­tary of State for For­eign Affairs and Coop­er­a­tion, was chair­ing the meet­ing on behalf of the EU High Rep­re­sen­ta­tive for For­eign Affairs and Secu­ri­ty Pol­i­cy. The Kyr­gyz del­e­ga­tion was head­ed by Mr Kadyr­bek Sar­baev, For­eign Min­is­ter of the Kyr­gyz Republic.

The Coop­er­a­tion Coun­cil dis­cussed a num­ber of issues of impor­tance to both par­ties, includ­ing imple­men­ta­tion of the EU Strat­e­gy for Cen­tral Asia across dif­fer­ent pri­or­i­ty sec­tors, polit­i­cal reforms, rule of law and human rights, water relat­ed issues, region­al coop­er­a­tion in Cen­tral Asia and inter­na­tion­al issues. 

The Coop­er­a­tion Coun­cil reaf­firmed the com­mit­ment of both par­ties to see the EU-Kyr­gyz Repub­lic rela­tions strength­en across a num­ber of areas, espe­cial­ly in the con­text of the Part­ner­ship and Coop­er­a­tion Agree­ment between the EU and the Kyr­gyz Repub­lic, which still needs to be ful­ly exploit­ed, and the over­all frame­work pro­vid­ed by the EU Strat­e­gy for Cen­tral Asia. It wel­comed progress achieved in the imple­men­ta­tion of the EU Strat­e­gy both on region­al and nation­al basis, and com­mend­ed Kyr­gyz con­tri­bu­tion to that end. It looked for­ward to fur­ther progress on this.

The Euro­pean Union wel­comed the par­lia­men­tary approval of the Kyr­gyz law on acces­sion to the 1989 Sec­ond Option­al Pro­to­col to the Inter­na­tion­al Covenant on Civ­il and Polit­i­cal Rights on the abo­li­tion of the death penal­ty on 11 Feb­ru­ary 2010, by which the Kyr­gyz Repub­lic rein­forced its com­mit­ment not to use the death penal­ty. The EU side, how­ev­er, expressed its strong con­cern about the dete­ri­o­ra­tion of human rights and fun­da­men­tal free­doms in the Kyr­gyz Repub­lic. It called for an urgent and com­pre­hen­sive action by the Kyr­gyz author­i­ties to address these issues. The EU side also urged the Kyr­gyz author­i­ties to demon­strate strong prac­ti­cal com­mit­ment to reform, which the EU stands ready to sup­port. It stressed the urgent need to strength­en admin­is­tra­tive capac­i­ties and the judi­cia­ry sys­tem as well as to improve the invest­ment cli­mate in the country.

The Coop­er­a­tion Coun­cil under­lined the impor­tance of region­al coop­er­a­tion in Cen­tral Asia as an effec­tive means of con­flict pre­ven­tion and socio-eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment in the region and wel­comed the active role the Kyr­gyz Repub­lic is play­ing in dif­fer­ent region­al and bilat­er­al ini­tia­tives. In this con­text, the Coop­er­a­tion Coun­cil called on the Cen­tral Asian part­ners to search for a durable set­tle­ment regard­ing water man­age­ment and ener­gy issues, which would take into account all inter­ests and pre­serve good coop­er­a­tion between coun­tries in the region. Spe­cial atten­tion was also giv­en to dis­cus­sion on inter­na­tion­al issues, includ­ing Afghanistan and Iran.

The Coop­er­a­tion Coun­cil called for clos­er coop­er­a­tion of the par­ties in the frame­work of inter­na­tion­al organ­i­sa­tions and sup­port for the con­struc­tive role the OSCE is play­ing in the Kyr­gyz Repub­lic and the region of Cen­tral Asia. 

Source:
Coun­cil Of The Euro­pean Union