Andrei Sakharov Foundation Forums

Principles of cooperation and establishment of the basis for relations with the Great Silk Road countries
The conduct of the "Great Silk Road" policy is based on the following principles:

• Equitable partnership, friendship and cooperation with all Great Silk Road countries; Interdependence; Mutual advantage; The long- term perspective; Multifaceted development of international cooperation.

Equitable partnership, friendship and cooperation with all Great Silk Road countries are the most important components of a principle which is objective and universal in nature, relating equally to the hopes and aspirations of any country interested in creating a favorable environment along its national borders and in the content of bilateral and multilateral diplomacy. This principle is in full conformity with the universally acknowledged principles and norms of international law as laid down in, the Charter of the United Nations, including mutual respect for sovereignty, territorial integrity and inviolability of borders, non-interference in internal affairs, non-use of force, settlement of conflicts by peaceful means and equal and mutually advantageous cooperation. Interdependence has become a completely new phenomenon of the end of the twentieth century. Globalization has led to an awareness of the unarguable fact that no country, however powerful it may be in military and economic terms, can face alone the challenges that call in question the survival of the whole of mankind. The principle of mutual advantage is sufficiently obvious. The development of mutually advantageous international cooperation within the Great Silk Road region will allow all countries without exception to find answers to many questions and solve the problems they are at present contending with. The countries of the region are actively striving to create new and diversify existing transportation systems so as to ensure the shortest and best means of access to world communications; hey are encouraging and developing international trade, both within the region and outside it; and they are intensifying and stepping up cultural and humanitarian, scientific and educational and tourism contacts between the nationals of all the countries of the region.The principle of the long-term perspective is inseparably interrelated with the preceding principle. The entire historical experience of the development both of the Great Silk Road itself and of the countries drawn into its orbit over the course of many centuries, has convincingly demonstrated the importance of and vital need for the development of inter-State relations that address the long-term perspective. Multifaceted development of international cooperation is a necessary condition for the creation of favorable prerequisites and possibilities for the conduct of a balanced, flexible and maneuverable policy on the international arena; it corresponds to Kyrgyzstan's long-term national interests and is determined by the entire complex of problems and issues that need to be solved in the future.
Prospects for the application of the "Great Silk Road" Foreign policy concept
The application of "Great Silk Road" diplomacy will have favorable long--term consequences for Kyrgyzstan and for all the other countries located in the Great Silk Road region.The revival of the Great Silk Road at this juncture will make it possible to create all the necessary conditions for the transformation of the region into an area of stability, security, friendship, cooperation and equitable partnership. The present-day Great Silk Road creates favorable prerequisites for the intensification of international cooperation in the joint solution of the global problems facing mankind on the threshold of the third millennium. The expansion of the geography of the Great Silk Road will make it possible to make fuller use of the existing opportunities and rich potential for intensifying international trade and economic, cultural and humanitarian, scientific and technical and tourist contacts between all countries and peoples. There are sufficient grounds for thinking that all the Great Silk Road countries will make the maximum efforts to ensure that in the new millenium there emerge from the Road region, which constitutes a vast space crossing the entire Eurasian continent from East to West and uniting a diversity of cultures, traditions and historical fates, only positive impulses of solidarity, peace, progress and prosperity. Kyrgyzstan is ready and able to act as a binding link between all the Great Silk Road countries. For Kyrgyzstan, the interests and objectives of its foreign policy consist in ensuring to the fullest possible extent the strengthening, by political and diplomatic means, of international guarantees of its independence, sovereignty, economic self-sufficiency and territorial integrity. To achieve these goals and objectives, Kyrgyzstan is full of resolve and will to comprehensively encourage and develop friendly, good-neighbourly relations of partnership with all the countries of the Great Silk Road region and to participate consistently and concretely in integration processes.