Mirziyoyev asked to unite against natural disasters

The regions where the member countries of the Organization of Turkic States (OTS) - Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkiye, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, observer countries - Turkmenistan, Hungary, and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus are located are the places where natural disasters and dangers actively occur based on their geographical and geological characteristics. President of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev said this in his speech at the extraordinary summit of the OTS held in Ankara today, March 16.

"Unfortunately, in recent years global climate change is increasing the scope and damage of these disasters," says the President.

In order to expand practical cooperation in this direction, he focused on the following specific proposals:

"I suggest to set up a systemic Cooperation Platform of the Organization in order to prevent and mitigate the consequences of emergency situations. I consider as an urgent task the formation of specific mechanisms and implementation of important measures as part of this Platform.

Firstly, it is very important to develop as soon as possible a Multilateral Agreement on the prevention of natural disasters and emergency situations. In this regard, we fully support the draft document submitted by the Turkish side on setting up a civil defense system.

Secondly, we need to sharply activate the partnership between our ministries for emergency situations.

It is high time for developing a Joint Action Program on priority areas during their next meeting.

We should focus on ensuring strict compliance with technical safety requirements and using the best international expertise in this field; regularly raising the awareness of the population; building capacity and improving the experience of the rescue teams.

Thirdly, it is expedient to create mechanisms of support to address social and economic problems in times of such unexpected disasters. It is mostly about ensuring an uninterrupted supply of food and construction materials and launching cooperation projects to restore the industrial base.

Certainly, we believe that initial financial resources of the Turkic Investment Fund to be inaugurated today can also be directed to these projects.," Mirziyoyev said.

Mirziyoyev also stated that, despite the progress achieved in the scientific and technological fields, early detection and early warning of earthquakes, floods, forest fires, and storms still remain an urgent task.

"Undoubtedly, deep research of these processes and broad use of science and technology can give significant positive results.

Taking this into account, I hope you will support our initiative to set up in Tashkent the Center for Monitoring and Analysis of Natural Disasters under the Organization," says Mirziyoyev.

Also, according to Mirziyoyev, practical cooperation of the Organization of Turkic States with specialized international structures should be strengthened.

"In particular, I believe it would be expedient for the Secretariat of our Organization to focus on establishing close ties with the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery, the Secretariat of the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction, and the Disaster Response Emergency Fund," Mirziyoyev said.