Officials from Central Asia travel to Bosnia and Herzegovina on OSCE-supported visit to learn more about reducing threat of explosive hazards

Best practices in reducing and responding to the threat of explosive hazards was the focus of an OSCE-supported three-day visit by a delegation from three Central Asian countries to Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), which concluded on 19 November 2015.

During the visit, which was jointly facilitated by the OSCE Office in Tajikistan and the OSCE Mission to BiH, 14 representatives of the national armed forces, the national mine action authorities and supporting agencies from Tajikistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan exchanged their experience with colleagues from BiH and discussed issues related to peace-keeping operations.

“Such visits facilitate understanding of OSCE efforts related to security co-operation and possibilities for further co-operation between the OSCE field operations and the host countries,” said Alexander Chuplygin, Deputy Head of the OSCE Mission to BiH.

Mihail Semionov, Demining Officer at the OSCE Office in Tajikistan, said: “The visit will contribute to raising awareness of the role that mine action co-ordination, operational and training capacities under civilian and military auspices have in supporting national humanitarian demining efforts as well as peace-keeping operations.”

The delegation visited the Mine Action Centre; the Mine Detection Dog Centre; the Humanitarian Mine Action and Explosive Ordnance Disposal Training Centre of the Armed Forces; the Peace Support Operations Training Centre, and the offices of the OSCE Mission to BiH.

The visit was hosted by the BiH Defence Ministry and was financed by the US State Department’s Office of Weapons Removal and Abatement.

Since 2009, the OSCE has been supporting the development of co-operative mechanisms on a technical level among states in Central Asia and Afghanistan to address concerns and challenges stemming from explosive hazards.