DUSHANBE, November 24, 2009, Asia-Plus — The second annual international two-day conference entitled “”Central Asia and Afghanistan: Challenges, Opportunities and Prospects” opened at the Center for Strategic Studies in Dushanbe today.
Staged by the foreign policy and foreign economic development directorate within the Center for Strategic Studies with support from the OSCE Office in Tajikistan, the conference has brought together representatives from international and regional organizations, political scientists, experts and researchers from Tajikistan, Iran, Afghanistan, Poland, Russia, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan to discuss issues related to the current situation in Afghanistan and various aspects of cooperation between Central Asia’s states and Afghanistan.
According to Sayfullo Safarov, the deputy director of the Center for Strategic Studies, the conference participants will consider the situation in Afghanistan after the presidential elections, place of Afghanistan in foreign policy of Central Asia’s countries, regional cooperation in providing border security, etc.
We will recall that the first annual international conference “”Central Asia and Afghanistan: Challenges, Opportunities and Prospects” was held in Dushanbe on November 11-12, 2008. Organized by the Center for Strategic Studies and the Institute for Strategic Studies (ISS), last year’s conference discussed the following subjects: considered developments in Afghanistan and in the region; ISAF and Afghanistan’s neighbors; Drug Trafficking from Afghanistan and its impact on the region’s states; and cooperation on border security.
