NATO Central Asia office opens in Tashkent

The opening ceremony will be attended by the NATO Secretary General’s Special Representative for the Caucasus and Central Asia, James Appathurai, resident Ambassadors of NATO member states in Tashkent, Ambassadors of Central Asian countries, and the high-ranking officials from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Defence and other state institutions of the Republic of Uzbekistan.

Supported by a small office, the NATO Liaison Officer in Central Asia acts as NATO’s diplomatic focal point on the ground and facilitates NATO’s practical engagement with Central Asian partners in a variety of areas, including defence planning and review, support to NATO operations, defence education and training, civil emergency planning, cooperation on science and environmental issues, and public diplomacy.

The opening of the office of the NATO Liaison Officer in Central Asia was discussed in January 2011 during the visit of President Islam Karimov of Uzbekistan to Brussels in a meeting with NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen. The office of the NATO Liaison Officer works directly with Central Asian government authorities to maximise their use of NATO’s partnership instruments in support of the goals set out in their respective cooperation programmes with Alliance.

The NATO Liaison Officer further engages and coordinates with other international actors in the region, such as Allied embassies and international organisations, including the missions of the United Nations, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the European Union and the International Committee for the Red Cross.

Kazakhstan was the first Central Asian partner to host the NATO Liaison Officer. Since March 2013, the current NATO Liaison Officer has been based in Uzbekistan, where his office was accredited as a diplomatic mission in July 2013.