DUSHANBE, December 14, Asia-Plus Over the past month, demining teams of the Swiss Foundation for Mine Action (FSD) have destroyed 680 landmines detected in the Dashti Yazgulem area in Vanj District of Gorno Badakhshan, Asia-Plus has learned at the UNDP Dushanbe Office.

According to the source, demining operations in this area will continue approximately for one more week because bad weather conditions do not allow continuing work on detecting landmines and unexploded ordnances.  In other areas, the demining operations have already been suspended till the new season in 2006.  

This year, Tajik deminers from the Swiss Foundation for Mine Action have cleared more than 100,000 square meters of contaminated areas in the central region of the country and along the Tajik-Afghan border.  They have detected and destroyed more than 1,300 antipersonnel landmines and unexploded ordnances, according to the source.  

We will recall that Tajikistan signed the Convention on the Prohibition on the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Antipersonnel Mines and on their Destruction (the Ottawa Convention) in 2000. All signatory states undertook to ensure the destruction of all anti-personnel land mines they possess, as soon as possible but no later than 10 years after signing the convention. In the case of Tajikistan, this means that the country should be mine-free by 2010.

DUSHANBE, December 14, Asia-Plus A two-day international conference on preventing conflicts in Central Asia entitled “Regional Cooperation in Fighting Terrorism, Extremism, Drug Trafficking and Crime” is opening in Dushanbe today.  

According to information from the Tajik MFA, the conference is expected to bring together foreign ministers of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Afghanistan.  Secretary General of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) Nikolai Bardyuzha and Secretary General of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Jan Deguan as well as Regional Resident of the UN Office for Drugs and Crime Prevention (UNODCP) in Central Asia James Callahan and UN representatives are also scheduled to attend the conference in Dushanbe.

Igor Sattarov, a spokesman for the Tajik MFA, has told Asia-Plus that the conference is staged by the UN Department for Political Matters, the OSCE and the UN Forum of Experts on Conflict-Prevention and Peace-Building with support of the Tajik Government.  The conference is held behind closed doors.