GUUAM Foreign Ministers Meet in New York

The seventh session of the Council of Foreign Ministers of GUUAM (Georgian, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Moldova) was held in New-York on September 23 on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly Session.

The Foreign Ministers of Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine took part in the session, reported the Georgian Foreign Ministry on September 24.

The Council of Foreign Ministers welcomed the establishment of the GUUAM Parliamentary Assembly on September 23 in Kiev, Ukraine. However, the representative of Uzbekistan attended neither the ministerial summit, nor the meeting of the Parliamentary Chairpersons in Kiev.

The Council expressed its interest in cooperation with the European Union and discussed both new directions for cooperation in regards to the New Neighborhood Initiative and implementation of the GUUAM Transport Corridor in the context of existing agreements within the GUUAM and TRACECA frameworks and the INOGATE project.

?The Ministers welcomed an initiative by Ukraine to host an Economic Forum and a Meeting of the GUUAM Business Council and called upon the respective authorities of the GUUAM States to actively participate in preparation for these events,? a communiqu? signed by the Foreign Ministers reads.

The Council decided to organize the 8th meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers of GUUAM within the Council of Foreign Ministers of OSCE in Bulgaria in 2004.