TASHKENT, Uzbekistan

On 14 May 2024, the first meeting of the Regional Expert Council on Rehabilitation and Reintegration of Returnees took place in Tashkent. The high-level event was organized by UNRCCA in close partnership with the UN Office of Counter-Terrorism (UNOCT), the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Uzbekistan, the Institute for Strategic and Regional Studies under the President of Uzbekistan, the State Security Service of Uzbekistan, the Family and Women's Committee under the Ministry of Employment and Poverty Reduction of Uzbekistan and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE).

The Regional Expert Council was established at the initiative of H.E. Shavkat Mirziyoyev, President of Uzbekistan, announced at the high-level conference “Regional cooperation of the countries of Central Asia within the framework of the Joint Action Plan for the Implementation of the UN Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy” in Tashkent in March 2022.

The main objective of the Regional Council is to strengthen regional and country specific efforts regarding repatriation, rehabilitation and reintegration of people coming from conflict zones through institutionalizing exchange of information and capacity building activities based on lessons learned and good practices.

More than one hundred participants representing the state institutions and civil society from all five Central Asian states as well as representatives of specialized UN agencies, including the Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate (CTED) and the UN Office of Drugs and Crime (UNODC), took part in discussions. The regional organizations, such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA) and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) attended the event.

At his opening statement, the Special Representative of Secretary-General for Central Asia, Head of UNRCCA, Kaha Imnadze, underlined that the Central Asian states have pioneered in returning their citizens from conflict zones and their experience could serve as an example for emulation by other UN Member States. At the same time, the security situation at the regional and global levels is continuously changing, entailing new challenges which require innovative approaches that the Regional Council could support.

As part of the Under Secretary-General and Head of UNOCT Vladimir Voronkov’s delegation, SRSG Imnadze met with H.E. President of Uzbekistan, the Minister and Deputy Foreign Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Chairperson of the State Security Service, the Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs and the Director of the Executive Committee of the SCO Regional Anti-terrorist Structure (SCO RATS) to discuss areas of mutual cooperation in the field of security. Furthermore, the SRSG informed the diplomatic community on the UNRCCA engagement in preventing extremism and countering terrorism at the briefing organized by UNOCT and the Uzbek counterparts.