OSCE organizes conference to support efforts to develop counter-narcotics strategies
07-07-2010
VIENNA, 6 July 2010 - Senior drug fighting experts will take part in a conference this week organized by the OSCE Chairmanship to support efforts to develop effective counter-narcotics strategies.
The two-day conference, which starts Thursday in Vienna, aims to raise awareness of the drug trafficking threat among the 56 OSCE participating States and to assist efforts to fight against drugs. It also aims to facilitate trans-national co-operation and information sharing and to strengthen the relationship, co-operation and co-ordination between OSCE and other international and regional key players in drug fighting.
Participants will consider different aspects of the drugs problem, including the spread of heroin and cannabis products from Afghanistan, the production of synthetic drugs in some European countries and their export and diversion of chemical precursors into illicit channels as well as the flow of Latin American cocaine to the OSCE region.
Participants in the conference include Serik Nurtayevich Baymaganbetov, the Interior Minister of Kazakhstan, which holds the 2010 OSCE Chairmanship; Afghanistan's Deputy Interior Minister, Gen. Mohammed Daud; Luz Nelcy Parrado Amaya, Colonel of Colombia's National Police; Sandeep Chawla, the Director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime's Division for Policy and Public Affairs, and Michael J. Santavicca, Special Agent Staff Co-ordinator for Drug Enforcement Administration.
Gen. Daud, a representative of the OSCE Chairmanship and the OSCE Senior Police Adviser to the Secretary General, Kevin Carty, will take part in a news conference set to start at 14:00 in room 201 in the Hofburg Congress Centre. Journalists are also invited to the conference's opening session, to be held from 14:30 to 15:00 in the Neuer Saal. Journalists interested in requesting interviews with participants are encouraged to contact OSCE press staff. For more information about the conference, please see http://polis.osce.org/events/details?item_id=3683
