European Union

VIENNA (AUSTRIA), 17 April 2012 – The OSCE, the Austrian Interior Ministry, the European Union, UNDP and the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) held a ministerial-level meeting of the Central Asia Border Security Initiative (CABSI) on 16 and 17 April.

CABSI, launched by the Austrian Interior Minister in 2003, is a key co-ordination forum for discussing border management, border security and combating drugs in Central Asia. The meeting focused on challenges including illegal migration, drug smuggling and corruption, as well as the planned drawdown of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) from Afghanistan.

The conference was opened by Austrian Interior Minister Johanna Mikl-Leitner; Hungarian Interior Minister Sándor Pintér; Russian deputy Interior Minister Sergey Bulavin; Albanian Interior Minister Bujar Nishani; Interior Minister of Tajikistan Ramazon Rahimov; Dirk Meganck, the Director for Asia, Central Asia and Pacific from the EuropeAid (European Commission); Rebeca Grynspan, UNDP Associate Administrator; OSCE Secretary General Lamberto Zannier and Yury Fedotov, Director General of UNODC.

Participants of the 10th CABSI Conference adopted a Ministerial Declaration on 17 April 2012. In the Declaration, the Conference participants called CABSI “an important tool to promote a sustainable and integrated border management approach, as well as to facilitate legitimate trade between countries and movement of persons and to ensure the management of migration flows while simultaneously encouraging economic development”.

Full text of the CABSI Ministerial Declaration [42 KB]