We welcome Ambassador Schöning to the Permanent Council and thank him for his report. We fully support the important work of the Centre in Almaty.

We believe the October parliamentary elections highlight the need to strengthen and reform many aspects of the election process.

We fully support the OSCE's call for the Government of Kazakhstan to publish complete election results, provide for court challenges and enforcement of court judgements, and publish the disposition of complaints and appeals.

The inability of the Government of Kazakhstan and Central Electoral Commission to publish complete election results remains troubling.

Government of Kazakhstan action on this is needed to dispel grave concerns about the transparency of the election, helping to restore public confidence in the Parliament.

We commend the OSCE and Government of Kazakhstan for agreeing to start in May a roundtable process to address the recommendations of the final OSCE report on the elections. We understand the roundtable will include the opposition, including parties not in the Parliament, media and NGOs.

In order to ensure that the roundtable process is result-oriented, the U.S. supports establishing benchmarks that must be met before the next session can meet.

Recognizing the security challenges facing the region, the U.S. looks 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.

We believe that recent tension over border demarcation must be addressed. It might be useful to examine the utility of OSCE involvement in this issue.

The U.S. supports OSCE involvement in seeking a coordinated regional water initiative.