you
Mr. Chairman. We, too, would like to welcome Ambassador
Reeve and thank him for his excellent report on the
activities of the OSCE Office in Yerevan. We believe
that this is one of the OSCE’s best-run field presences,
and the credit must go in large part to Ambassador Reeve
himself. We are also happy to note that our Embassy in
Yerevan also cooperates closely with Ambassador Reeve
and his staff.
I would like to comment on just a few of the items
covered in the Ambassador's excellent report.
We are pleased to hear that the Office in Yerevan and
the Government of Armenia continue their diligent
efforts on good governance. The United States looks
forward with optimism to the release of the national
strategy on anti-corruption. We are also pleased to hear
the Ambassador's assessment that the U.S. Agency for
International Development has played a constructive role
in this initiative.
The United States also applauds the role played by
the OSCE Office in supporting electoral reform in
preparation for the upcoming parliamentary and
presidential elections in Armenia. The work on IDP
issues by the Office and by the Norwegian Refugee
Council deserves praise as well.
We are likewise gratified to see the Office fully
engaged in the fight against terrorism, as evidenced by
its work on fraudulent document identification, cyber
crime and money laundering, and by the Lawyers'
Conference on Anti-Terrorism and Human Rights.
The Office's work in the Human Dimension, including
Freedom of the Media, merits our attention as well. We
note in particular its engagement in two areas to which
the United States attaches particular importance:
trafficking in persons and international religious
freedom. I commend to Ambassador Reeve and to my
colleagues the most recent U.S. State Department annual
reports on these topics, available at the U.S. State
Department website, www.state.gov.
In the Economic and Environmental Dimension, we share
Ambassador Reeve's concern that there has been so little
success in developing regional projects. On behalf of my
government, I would today urge all participating States
in the region to work actively and cooperatively with
each other and with the OSCE to develop joint projects
of interest and value to all.
Mr. Chairman, I would like to close with the
observation that the Yerevan Office's excellent working
relationship with the Government of Armenia, with
Armenian civil society, and with international
organizations in the region, should serve as a model for
all OSCE field
presences.
