Pres. Karzai opened 17th meeting of ECO Council of Ministers in Herat
Afghan President, Hamid Karzai opened the 17th meeting of the Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO) Council of Ministers in Herat. In his opening statement, Pres. Karzai characterized regional cooperation as one of the pillars of Afghanistan’s foreign, security and development policy and priority. He expressed his wish that during the chairmanship of the ECO by Afghanistan, the organization took concrete measures to strengthen regional cooperation.
The opening ceremony was followed by the election of Afghan foreign minister Dr. Spanta as the chairman of the ECO for the next year. In his keynote speech, Dr. Spanta informed the council of Afghanistan’s priorities during its chairmanship. He named cooperation in the field of counter-narcotics; Youth Exchange Program among member states; promotion of City Sisters between a number of cities of the ECO and establishing the ECO University as Afghanistan’s priorities.
Following statements by heads of delegation, the Herat Communiqué was approved by the council. The delegates also laid foundation of the ECO Park. The ECO Park is going to be divided into ten sections. Each section will be allocated to a member-state to develop. Afghanistan also proposed establishing the permanent secretariat of the ECO chamber of commerce in Herat.
On the margin of the 17th meeting of the ECO Council of the Ministers, Afghan FM held a number of bilateral and trilateral meetings with visiting delegations. He held separate meeting with the Secretary General of the ECO, Kazak deputy foreign minister and Turkey’s state minister for foreign affairs. He also took part in tripartite meeting between Afghanistan-Pakistan and Iran and Afghanistan-Iran and Tajikistan.
On Friday night, 19th October 2007, Afghan Foreign Minister hosted an official dinner in the honor of visiting delegations at the ancient castle of Ikhtiar-alddin.