TURKMENISTAN ELECTED VICE-CHAIRMAN OF THE 75th SESSION OF THE UN GENERAL ASSEMBLY

The good news came from New York, where the United Nations Headquarters is located - on June 29, 2020, our country was elected Vice-President of the upcoming 75th session of the UN General Assembly. This was reported by the Permanent Mission of Turkmenistan to the UN.

Thus, the close partnership of Turkmenistan with the UN has received a new impetus, primarily in the context of the implementation of important international initiatives of President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov. And here the dates are especially symbolic: June 29, when this decision was made, is the birthday of the Turkmen leader, and 2020 is marked by the 25th anniversary of the neutral status of Turkmenistan.

Our country is elected for the sixth time as vice-chairman of the session of the General Assembly of the United Nations. Earlier, in this capacity, Turkmenistan participated in the 58th, 62nd, 64th, 68th and 71st sessions.

The next delegation of this honorable mission serves as a vivid testimony of the high international authority of Turkmenistan, the constructiveness of the foreign policy pursued by the leader of the nation, based on the principles of positive neutrality, peacefulness, good-neighborliness and broad international cooperation that meet common interests.

The development of a strategic, multifaceted partnership with the United Nations has been identified by head of state Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov as one of the key vectors of Turkmenistan’s activities on the world stage. Based on the accumulated rich experience of cooperation, at the present stage, this traditional dialogue is expanding its scope, absorbing new directions and pressing issues of global importance.

The intensification of fruitful contacts with the UN and its largest specialized agencies and structures is due, first of all, to the active and proactive position of Turkmenistan in the affairs of the world community, its desire to provide real assistance in solving problems of a regional and planetary scale.

This position, as well as the constructive policy of the head of state as a whole, is clearly supported by the United Nations, including in the form of resolutions adopted by the UN at the suggestion of our country. In addition, in recent years, Turkmenistan has been repeatedly elected to the authoritative structures and economic institutions of this organization.

Among them are the UN Economic and Social Council, the UN Commission on Population and Development, the UNESCO Executive Council, the UN Economic Commission for Europe and the UNECE Committee on Sustainable Energy, the UN Special Program for the Economies of Central Asia, the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs, the Executive Committee of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Program, Executive Council of the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, etc.

All this confirms that the partnership of our neutral independent state with the UN, as the leader of the nation Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov notes, is consistently developing in the upward direction and is being built with an eye to the long term.

In March this year in Ashgabat was adopted the Framework Program for Sustainable Development Cooperation between Turkmenistan and the United Nations for 2021–2025, which fully meets both the priority tasks of the national programs implemented in our country and the Sustainable Development Goals for the period until 2030.

This document is intended to facilitate further cooperation between Turkmenistan and the UN in various areas, including maintaining economic stability and growth, protecting the social rights of the population, improving the health care system and maintaining the ecological balance.

The strategic priorities and outcomes, to that the Framework is aimed at, correspond to the wider context of Central Asia, support Turkmenistan’s cooperation with neighboring countries, which President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov aims to address common issues, partnership with regional and subregional institutions. On the platform of the previous five-year Framework Programs, Turkmenistan, together with specialized UN structures, has implemented hundreds of important projects in various fields.

Having achieved impressive results of independent development and having managed, thanks to timely comprehensive and decisive preventive measures, to avoid the negative impact of the coronavirus pandemic, our country is steadily implementing a well-defined economic strategy.

Its main aspects are the creation of a multistructure, socially oriented national economy, the improvement of the legislative base, as well as integration into the modern system of world economic relations through the development of full-scale cooperation with all interested foreign partners.

The active position of our state in matters of cooperation with the United Nations is convincingly confirmed by the constructive initiatives of President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov. They are aimed at ensuring global energy security and the formation of a branched transport and transit infrastructure, solving water and environmental problems, etc.

As the leader of the nation emphasizes, Turkmenistan is not limited only to introducing important initiatives aimed at building up a broad international partnership, but also takes measures to implement them in practice.

Among the priority tasks as a neutral state, Turkmenistan sees the establishment of a culture of dialogue in resolving emerging issues and contradictions. On September 12 last year, the UN General Assembly unanimously and co-sponsored 73 member states adopted a resolution initiated by the head of Turkmenistan on declaring 2021 the International Year of Peace and Confidence.

This initiative of President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov is extremely relevant and timely, first of all, against the background of the difficult trends in international politics, when, despite the efforts of the world community, the situation in a number of regions of the globe remains difficult, there is an expansion of conflict zones and at the same time a decrease in the general level of trust and mutual understanding in views on the paths and prospects of global development.

In this context, our country will develop and submit for consideration by the UN a number of proposals for the International Year of Peace and Confidence with the most practical benefit for efforts to ensure peace and security. Turkmenistan also took the initiative to develop a Code of Practice on the application of the principles of neutralism in ensuring peace and security and proposed the creation of a Group of Friends of Neutrality in the interests of peace and security.

The election of Turkmenistan as vice-president of the 75th session of the UN General Assembly expresses a new important chapter in the history of relations between our country and the United Nations.

And at the same time, this is a significant success of the multifaceted diplomacy of the leader of the nation Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov, which meets both the fundamental national interests and the tasks of ensuring universal peace, security and sustainable development.