BLACK SEA SUMMIT OPENS IN ROMANIAN CAPITAL
AP Worldstream
Jun 05, 2006
The presidents of Ukraine, Georgia and Armenia were among leaders
attending a Black Sea summit on Monday aimed at tackling drug- and
people-smuggling in the region and finding ways to clean up pollution
in the sea, as well as discussing alternative energy routes.
“Putting the Black Sea on the map is a challenge in itself,” said
Romanian Foreign Minister Mihai Razvan Ungureanu opening the summit.
“Good governance, sustainable development to define issues of common
interests and to evaluate national and regional capacities and to
prepare the future in a pro-active manner. … We want a new vision
to reflect new realities,” he said.
The main topics on the summit’s agenda would be environment protection,
regional cooperation, joint energy projects, combatting cross-border
crime and improving infrastructure.
Among those attending were Presidents Viktor Yushchenko of Ukraine,
Mikhail Saakashvili of Georgia, Robert Kocharian of Armenia, Vladimir
Voronin of Moldova and Ilham Aliev of Azerbaijan, as well as officials
from Turkey, Bulgaria, Greece and Lithuania.
Top officials from NATO, the Organization for Security and Cooperation
in Europe, the United Nations and the Council of Europe are also
attending the summit.
Kocharian and Aliev are expected to hold talks on the status of
Nagorno-Karabakh on the sidelines of the summit. Talks between the two
leaders in France in February ended in failure, despite international
mediators’ efforts to push the leaders to resolve Nagorno-Karabakh’s
status.
Nagorno-Karabakh is inside Azerbaijan but populated mostly by ethnic
Armenians, who have run it since an uneasy 1994 cease-fire ended six
years of full-scale war. Sporadic border clashes have grown more
frequent since the breakdown of talks. The lack of resolution has
hindered development throughout the strategic region.
Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey, Ukraine, Russia and Georgia directly border
the Black Sea, which is one of the world’s most polluted seas.
Its only outlet to outside seas is via the Bosphorus Straits.
Russia declined to send a high-level official to the summit but
requested observer status. It is being represented by its ambassador
to Bucharest, said Romanian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Corina Vintan.