We are honored by the presence of Foreign Minister Nazarov in the Permanent Council today. His visit confirms his Government's desire to work with us to fully implement Tajikistan's commitment to OSCE principles.

We welcome the deepening relationship between Tajikistan and the OSCE, particularly with ODIHR. We support increased OSCE activity in Central Asia generally and in Tajikistan in particular.

Tajikistan has earned genuine respect from its OSCE partners for its slow, steady progress toward national reconciliation.

This process has not been tidy, nor has it always moved in the right direction. There have been many tense moments when security incidents or accusations of bad faith threatened to bring the process down.

It is to the enormous credit of both sides that they always kept their eye on the prize -- peace and national reconciliation. Thus far, they have managed in every instance to defuse crises and push forward with the peace process.

This process is nearing its logical conclusion with presidential elections in November and parliamentary elections early next year.

To cement these gains, it is vital that all political and regional groups in Tajikistan be allowed to participate on an equal footing. The losers must feel just as confident as the winners that the elections have been free and fair.

Only when that happens could we agree with Foreign Minister Nazarov that the peace process is truly irreversible.

In this regard, we are deeply concerned that the three opposition candidates have declared the presidential elections fundamentally flawed, and announced that they plan to boycott them.

We encourage both the government and the opposition parties to work for a mutually acceptable solution.

Useful steps would include ensuring a transparent registration process for candidates, free access by candidates to the media, respect for the right of assembly, and freedom from intimidation for both candidates and voters.

The current registration process requires large numbers of signatures on petitions, allows too little time for them to be gathered, and gives local officials too much leeway to invalidate signatures. We believe these problems need to be remedied.

Mr. Chairman, I note that the Minister highlighted water as a key issue for Tajikistan and for the region. The U.S. believes more attention needs to be focused on the issue of Central Asian water systems, and that the problem needs to be addressed regionally, and with cooperative efforts with other organizations looking at this issue.

Finally, Mr. Chairman, we would once again urge the Government of Tajikistan to allow the OSCE mission to open a field office in the city of Khujent.

If our mission is to work effectively for national reconciliation, it needs to have a presence in all the major regions.