U.S. DELEGATION MEETS PRESIDENTS, REAFFIRMS INTERESTS IN THE REGION.

The U.S. State Department coordinator for relations with CIS countries, James Collins, accompanied by officials of the State, Defense, and Treasury Departments and the National Security Council, completed a visit to the five Central Asian countries. (Also see Monitor, March 11) In the last two stages of the visit, Collins handed over to Presidents Islam Karimov in Tashkent and Nursultan Nazarbayev in Almaty messages from U.S. president Bill Clinton. The message to Karimov reportedly expressed the belief that Uzbekistan could play a major role in advancing regional cooperation in Central Asia, promoting peace in Tajikistan, combating the drug trade, and actively cooperating with NATO’s Partnership for Peace program. Collins and Uzbek foreign minister Abdulaziz Komilov signed an agreement on consular relations. The message to Nazarbayev reportedly reaffirmed U.S. support for Kazakhstan’s efforts to encourage foreign investment and its initiative to create a Central Asian joint peacekeeping battalion under UN aegis. The U.S. delegation also discussed a project for the conversion of the large Soviet-era chemical munitions plant in Stepnogorsk (Akmola region). (17)

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