Ladies and gentlemen!

Dear colleges, friends!

Allow me first of all to join Farid in thanking Professor Dutkievich and his colleagues for organizing this Conference, which gives us a possibility to present our vision of the history, the present and the future of GUAM – the organization which, as it was mentioned in the Statement of the GUAM’s jubilee Vilnus Summit a few days ago (October 10) has successfully passed through various tests and proved its strong viability and practical relevance.

Speaking of the transformation of GUAM, I would like to underline that the establishment of the “Organization for Democracy and Economic Development” at the Kyiv Summit in 2006 opened a new page in the history of GUAM. I say so not because it happened in my home country of Ukraine, but because all the work of GUAM after that summit was marked by practical steps aimed at strengthening our cooperation in all spheres. One of the main results accomplished since the Kyiv Summit is the completion of the process of transformation of GUAM into a full-fledged international organization with a distinct identity, devoted to democracy and economic development. This was the outcome of a decade-long dedicated cooperation of all our Member-States, and I’m proud of the role which my country has been playing in this process.

Ten years may seem not such a long time from a historian’s point of view. However, the advancement of GUAM and its transformation from a consultative association between our four States in 1997 to a full-fledged international Organization in 2006, with its Statute, its Permanent Secretariat in Kyiv is important in the sense that it confirms the objective tendency of development of regional and international cooperation as one of the modern forms of globalization and internalization of the world.

Even if the base concept of GUAM is, first of all, cooperation on the creation of a trans-Caucasian transport corridor from Asia, all Member-States have always reiterated their commitment to cooperation aimed at strengthening the democracy, increasing the security, as well as deepening political, economic, scientific and cultural cooperation in the GUAM region.

We may hear sometimes that there are already so many other regional organizations, particularly, in the Black Sea area, which often duplicate each other. I believe that there is nothing harmful in such duplication. Ukraine’s approach is that regional cooperation has to develop on the basis of non-hierarchal and open system of mutually beneficial ties between the existing regional organizations, and any multiplication of efforts only consolidates the practical cooperation. And the creation and development of GUAM fully corresponds to these principles.

But the creation of an organization is not the end in itself. Today GUAM plays a more and more active role in the international life, advances cooperation between its members, as well as reinforces its own structures. GUAM develops relations with other international bodies and countries such as the USA, the EU, the Visegrad Group (Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary and Slovakia), Poland, the Baltic States and Japan.

GUAM has established strong cooperative ties with partner states by effectively using the so-called “GUAM Plus” format. I would like to say that such cooperation has received a new impulse this year during the GUAM summit in Baku. In addition to the traditional meeting with our partners from the United States, two meetings in the “GUAM Plus” format were conducted with Poland and Japan. And as you may know, last September in New York such meetings also took place with the United States and Poland. At the meeting with Poland, the Polish delegation reiterated its support of GUAM, and it was agreed to organize a high-level GUAM-Poland meeting in Warsaw at the end of this year to consider the prospects of expanding the GUAM – Poland cooperation in the spheres of mutual interest, such as transport and energy, tourism and the functioning of the GUAM Free Trade Zone.

Nowadays, the GUAM Member-States have also intensified cooperation between themselves within other international organizations on the basis of common plans of work of theirs Permanent missions. Specifically, nowadays we have such cooperation the framework of the UN, the CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States), the EU, the European Counsel, the UNESCO, the OSCE, the EAPC (Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council).

In particular, GUAM Member-States have set up a mechanism of elaboration and approval of their joint declarations. For instance, I can mention such process of coordination in the preparation of the draft resolution at the 61st UN General Assembly concerning the frozen conflicts in the GUAM area.

At the 62nd session of the United Nations General Assembly our First Deputy Foreign Minister (and former Ukraine’s Ambassador to Canada) Mr. V.Khandogiy, speaking about the global peace and security, one more time drew attention to this problem and emphasized our concerns that numerous international efforts to settle those conflicts, up to now, have yielded no result. It very important for us, because these conflicts endanger the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the countries of the region and, at the same time, hamper their economy and the social development.

I don’t want to go into details of the nature of these conflicts or discuss possible ways of their settlement, but only mention GUAM’s joint approach to their resolution as an example of our cooperation on the international arena. In our opinion, the United Nations, regional organizations and other relevant mechanisms should harmoniously complement one another using their comparative advantages in peacemaking activities to settle these conflicts on the basis of respect of the principles of sovereignty, territorial integrity and inviolability of internationally recognized state borders.

To give you another example of joint stance of GUAM nations on the international arena, I can tell you that we are now working together on the preparation of a Joint Statement of GUAM concerning the recognition of the artificial famine (Holodomor) in Ukraine in 1932-1933 as an act of genocide against Ukrainian people.

We undertake other practical steps to strengthen our intra-organizational cooperation. Some of them I mentioned above but it is also important to mention the activity of the eight sectoral working groups which cover trade and economic issues, cooperation in the spheres of energy, transport, culture and education, tourism, fight against organized crime and drug trafficking, communication technology and cooperation in the emergency situations. In this context, I would like to mention again the GUAM Summit in Baku, where the question of sectoral cooperation was one of the central topics of discussion. And if you look through the program of the Azerbaijan Presidency in GUAM for 2007-2008 you can clearly see it. Each working group has clearly defined objectives and expected results, which we hope to achieve during Azerbaijan Presidency.

Summing up my short presentation, I would like to say that in our fast moving world each state or union tries to contribute to the process of globalization in its own manner. GUAM as a natural transportation corridor connecting Europe and Asia may and will play an increasingly important role in the economic development and regional integration, thus bringing the continent together. And ten years which have passed after the original idea to use that strategic position testify to the effectiveness of this concept.

Today we have all the necessary conditions for the qualitative development of GUAM. We intend to coordinate our policies in the fields of production and transfer of energy carriers, as well as the realization of projects that will allow GUAM member states to join international transport corridors. There is also a lot to be done yet to integrate our capacities with a view to create stable space of democracy, security and prosperity.

And we are ready to continue our joint efforts aimed at achieving these goals.