President of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev, in his address to the participants of the International Conference “Afghanistan: Security and Economic Development”, held in Tashkent, stressed that the narrowing of global attention span towards Afghanistan, which is facing a deep socio-economic and humanitarian crisis in its recent history, cannot but cause concern.

As the Head of the state noted, today the world community can and should avoid repeating the mistakes of the 1990s. “It is important to prevent the international isolation of Afghanistan, which will inevitably lead to further deterioration of the humanitarian situation. We are talking about the fate of millions of people”.

The Interim Government of Afghanistan is taking certain steps to peacefully settle the country, seeks to improve the socio-economic situation, establish friendly relations with neighboring states, and mutually beneficial cooperation with the international community. “And we should encourage and support these efforts”, he stressed.

According to him, the fundamental conditions for establishing long-term peace in Afghanistan remain the formation of a broad representation of all segments of Afghan society in public administration, ensuring basic human rights and freedoms, especially for women, and all ethnic and religious groups.

In this context, Shavkat Mirziyoyev called on the current Government of Afghanistan to demonstrate the firm will and take decisive measures to prevent and counter terrorism in all its forms and manifestations, to sever ties with all international terrorist organizations.

This will help strengthen confidence in the Interim Government and open up real prospects for the sustainable development of Afghanistan in an atmosphere of friendship, good-neighborliness and mutually beneficial cooperation with its neighbors and the international community.

The conference, organized by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs jointly with ISRS, is attended by special representatives for Afghanistan from more than 20 states of Central and South Asia, Europe, America, the Near and Middle East, and the Asia-Pacific region. Heads and specialists of international and regional organizations, such as the UN, EU, FAO, ECO, OIC, SCO, are represented at the conference. Among the invited are heads and experts of the leading analytical centers of Afghanistan's neighboring countries, including from all Central Asian countries, Russia, the United States, Iran, Pakistan, India and Belgium. Among the invited think tanks are such structures as the Observer Research Foundation, the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (India), the Center for Global and Strategic Studies, Islamabad Policy Research Institute (Pakistan), Central Asia-Caucasus Institute (United States), the institutes for strategic studies under the presidents of Central Asian countries and others.

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