Dushanbe, September 12, 2011, Asia-Plus — The Commander of Tajik Border Troops, Lieutenant-General Sherali Mirzo, is attending a meeting of the Issyk-Kul Initiative that opened at the Kyrgyz resort Issyk-Kul on September 12.
The press center of the Main Border Guard Directorate within the State Committee for National Security (SCNS) reports the meeting has brought together border troops commanders from Central Asia’s nations to the discuss the border management issues.
The border troops commanders from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan are expected to sign bilateral joint complex plans for interaction and cooperation today.
National complex border management strategies of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan will be presented on sidelines of the meeting on September 13, the source said.
The meeting participants will also hold bilateral meetings to discuss border security issues.
The Issyk-Kul Initiative was founded under support of the Border Management Program in Central Asia (BOMCA).
Border management and security in Central Asia are a major challenge for the region with direct effects on other countries in Asia and Europe. Therefore, various national and international stakeholders are active in providing support to Central Asia governments in order to update their border management approaches and to effectively cooperate with neighboring countries and international partners.
In 2003, the European Commission signed an agreement with UNDP on the coordination and implementation of its TACIS BOMCA Program. The program aims to address the challenges of fragmentation and support the development of harmonized and coordinated modern border management methods at the regional level, improve cross-border cooperation, and facilitate the legal trade and transit across the borders of Central Asian (CA) countries.
BOMCA is an integrated, multifaceted intervention with a developmental and institution building approach. The main component of BOMCA is capacity development for Integrated Border Management (IBM) through training and exposure to European best practices of IBM for all agencies involved in border management. Additional components of the program include provision of infrastructure and equipment to leverage what is accomplished through specialized training and to facilitate more professional and efficient security, law enforcement and trade operations at selected border crossing points (BCPs) on trade corridors, and enhanced security and improvement of working conditions at selected border outposts (BOs) on the Tajik-Afghan border. Also, a major work is done to modernize and upgrade training facilities, to support CA countries in developing and expanding their capacities so that they are sufficiently able to introduce the IBM methodologies. Advice on legal reforms and institutional frameworks are subsidiary program components.
