Mr. President, we welcome you to the Permanent Council and thank you for your wide-ranging presentation. Just as at the Istanbul immit, your presence here demonstrates Kazakhstan's intention to work closely with the OSCE.

As you stated, the unique strength of the OSCE is its focus on comprehensive security and the need to work in all three dimensions -- security, economic, and human rights – to support the building of free and democratic societies.

We are aware of the many challenges you face and we listened with interest to the concerns, particularly in the security area that you laid out this morning. We believe the OSCE can play an important role in assisting Kazakhstan and the other Central Asian republics to develop and provide for the stability, security and prosperity of their people.

We commend your commitment to implement the provisions of the Memorandum of Understanding you signed with ODIHR.

We fully support your view that the ODIHR report on the parliamentary elections is an important contribution to strengthening the democratic process in your country.

In this regard, we urge the Government of Kazakhstan and the newly elected Parliament to address the shortcomings in the recent parliamentary elections.

We look forward to Kazakhstan's implementing the report’s recommendations to restore public confidence by urgently publishing complete election results, ensuring that citizens can challenge the results through the judicial system and that court judgments are enforced, and publishing a report on the disposition of all complaints and appeals filed for the two rounds of elections.

In addition, we hope Kazakhstan will take steps to comply with the ODIHR report’s recommendations for reforming electoral legislation.

We welcome your commitment to market reform and attracting increased foreign investment flows. The work of the OSCE missions in Central Asia has a strong focus on Economic Dimension activities, which we fully support.

Our Government is currently working with other donor governments and organizations in seeking a coordinated regional water initiative. We urge you to support this effort as it develops over the coming months.

We look forward to working with Secretary General Kubis, the CiO's Personal Representative for Central Asia, in exploring further ways in which the OSCE can assist Kazakhstan and its neighboring Central Asian Republics, in addressing their security concerns.