United States-GUUAM Joint Statement (New York, September 14, 2002)

On September 14, a new round of GUUAM-U.S. dialogue was held during the General Debates of the 57th Session of the United Nations General Assembly.

The Foreign Ministers of Georgia, Azerbaijan, Ukraine, the United Nations Ambassador of the Republic of Moldova and Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs A. Elizabeth Jones discussed current GUUAM-U.S. cooperation and progress in the Global War on Terrorism.

To this end, the GUUAM Ministers and the Assistant Secretary of State recalled the Agreement on Cooperation in the Field of Combat Against Terrorism, Organized Crime and Other Dangerous Types of Crime, signed at the Yalta Summit in July 2002, and called for concerted action in this direction.

The Ministers and Assistant Secretary of State discussed issues of international and regional security and the prospects of GUUAM-U.S. cooperation. The group noted concrete project ideas in the areas of counter-terrorism, security and effectiveness of transport corridors, for example customs control, border security, and trade facilitation. The sides highlighted the importance of the involvement of the U. S. experts in the further development of the joint projects and their contribution to the expert level GUUAM meeting to this end.

The Participants Parties discussed the prospects of cooperation for the implementation of the GUUAM Agreement on Establishing of Free Trade Area.

The meeting provided a forum for GUUAM collectively to present recent progress on specific regional proposals since their July Summit in Yalta. The United States reiterated its long standing interest in GUUAM and its support for GUUAM’s transition to an active international organization. Together, GUUAM members and the US reiterated that terrorism is not identified with any religion or culture, and recommitted themselves to work closely together in the coalition against terrorism.
GUUAM and the U.S. will continue to explore and refine areas of cooperation with a view towards concrete, achievable proposals developed and implemented by the members of GUUAM in the near future.