OSCE Centre supports training seminar for Kazakh, Kyrgyz border and customs officials

MERKE, Kazakhstan, 26 April 2010 - A five-day OSCE-supported training seminar for Kazakhstani and Kyrgyz border service and customs officials began today in Merke, on Kazakhstan's southern border with Kyrgyzstan.

The OSCE Centre organized the seminar in co-operation with the UN Border Management Programme for Central Asia, the International Organization for Migration, the OSCE Centre in Bishkek, and the border services and customs agencies of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.

"This seminar helps improve co-ordination between Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan's border agencies and enhance their combined capacity to respond to contemporary threats. It also contributes to regional security co-operation as a whole," said Ambassador Alexandre Keltchewsky, the Head of the OSCE Centre in Astana.

Leading experts in the field of border security and customs will share international practices with the students. During the seminar, the participants, comprising 26 Kazakhstani and Kyrgyz border guards and eight customs officers, will discuss modern border management challenges - including human, narcotics and weapons trafficking, transnational organized crime, terrorism and illegal migration - and the means to effectively deal with such threats.

Seminar topics also include document inspection and contraband seizure techniques for train and vehicle checks, the use of biometric and other information systems, and integrated border management principles as a means to improve inter-agency and cross-border co-ordination.

The seminar is part of the OSCE Centre in Astana's efforts to promote the OSCE border security concept in Kazakhstan. Similar training courses were held last year in Merke and Pavlodar, Kazakhstan.