Opening statement of Regional Director of the Friedrich Ebert
Foundation in Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan
Henriette Kiefer
Dear Mr. Norov,
Mr. Akhatov,
Mr. Annen,
Dear Excellencies,
Dear guests,
In the name of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, I welcome you in our roundtable organized
together with the Institute for Strategic and Regional Studies in the context of the journey of
Mr. Niels Annen, minister of State at the Federal Foreign Office of Germany to Uzbekistan.
In the last two years, Uzbekistan decided to take more responsibility in the Central Asian
region. It opened its trade relations and enhanced imports and exports with its neighbors. It
worked on further demarcation of its borders and already succeeded in many border regions,
which will facilitate more and more traffic between populations.
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