Uzbekistan, Tashkent, Feb.27 / Trend, D. Azizov /
New OSCE project co-ordinator, Ambassador György Szabó assumed his office in Uzbekistan. He replaced Ambassador Istvan Venczel, who has headed the OSCE mission in Uzbekistan since Jan.1, 2008, a government source told Trend on Monday.
Mr Szabó has already taken part in the opening of three-day courses to improve managerial skills and those of public authority press officers and public organizations in Uzbekistan.
György Szabó was born in 1957 in Budapest. He has held several diplomatic posts in the Foreign Ministry of Hungary and served as ambassador to Nigeria and Benin. He was most recently deputy head of the Hungarian EU Presidency Logistics and Organisation Department in 2011 and Chief of Protocol for the Hungarian President from 2005 to 2010. Uzbekistan has been a member of OSCE since 1992.
In July 2006, the Uzbekistan government and the OSCE signed a memorandum on the establishment of the post of OSCE Project Co-ordinator in Uzbekistan. Currently 30 OSCE projects are underway in the country.
Ministries and agencies, civil society institutes, including government agencies for the protection of human rights: the authorised personnel of the Oliy Majlis of the Republic of Uzbekistan for Human Rights (Ombudsman), the National Centre for Human Rights, as well as National Association of NGOs of Uzbekistan and other non-profit organisations are all involved in their implementation.
Uzbekistan's initiatives on cooperation with the OSCE and security issues are reflected in a number of documents. In particular, the 1996 Lisbon Declaration laid down the fact of full participation of Central Asian states in OSCE activity, as well as a provision to stop the illegal supply of weapons to conflict zones.
A thesis on the availability and danger of external threats to security in the OSCE area was included in the 1999 Charter for European Security adopted at the OSCE Istanbul Summit at the initiative of Tashkent.
