PRESS RELEASE

In view of the ongoing pandemic of the coronavirus disease and the comprehensive measures, being taken by the international community to fight against this global threat, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Turkmenistan informs about the following:

The systematic work on prevention of the entry of this infection onto the territory of the country was implemented by Turkmenistan since the first days of the spread of the COVID-19 in the world.

In this regard, a Governmental Commission was established under the leadership of the President of Turkmenistan, competent to resolve organizational, legal, financial, technical and other issues, related to the fight against the coronavirus. To coordinate the activities of the relevant state agencies, an Operations Center has been created which consists of representatives of the Ministry of Health and Medical Industry, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Internal Affairs, State Border Service, State Customs Service, State Migration Service and others.

At the first stage of combatting the coronavirus infection, a set of measures were taken on strengthening border, customs and migration regimes, as well as a sanitary and epidemiological, phytosanitary and veterinary supervision.

The system of regular provision of the population with the necessary, free of charge medications contributing to the strengthening of immune system of a human being was arranged.

The health examination programme for the population is being carried out and necessary measures on enhancing the immune status of people are being implemented.

At the same time, Turkmenistan is developing international cooperation, aimed at the consolidation of efforts of the world community on combatting the pandemic threat.

Hereby, it is worthwhile to note the active participation of the President of Turkmenistan in the international Summits organized with the aim of fighting the pandemic.

Particularly, during the Non-Aligned Movement Summit, held in May 2020, the President of Turkmenistan set forward the initiative on promoting the scientific diplomacy by proposing the establishment of an International Council of Medical Scientists.

The main objective of this initiative lies in the establishment of direct contacts between practicing doctors and scientists in the field of medical science:

First, it is being proposed to cooperate actively in the area of determining the nature of occurrence of this new type of coronavirus.

Second, it is advisable to intensify the work of the scientific medical community in the field of studying the forms of manifestation of diseases, caused by the new type infection;

Third, there is a need for joint work in terms of the search for forms, methods and means of treatment of the particularly dangerous infectious diseases and their prevention, including the development of vaccines, other special medical substances and many more.

One of the significant examples of Turkmenistan’s contribution in the international efforts on combatting the spread of COVID-19 infection is the information on the set of measures, carried out by our country which was outlined in the letter of the President of Turkmenistan, addressed to the Director-General of the World Health Organization. This letter was distributed as an official document of the 74th session of the United Nations General Assembly.

At the same time, the International Forum dedicated to the issues of sustainable development and initiated by Turkmenistan was held on 28 May 2020. The outcome document of the Forum was also published as an official document of the 74th session of the UN General Assembly.

In line with the abovementioned, it is pertinent to underline the call of the UN Secretary-General António Guterres to the Organization’s Member States, made on 30 March 2020 on conducting a comprehensive and systematic work on fight against the coronavirus threat.

Consequently, the National Preparedness and Response Plan of Turkmenistan for Fight against Particularly Infectious Diseases was adopted in Turkmenistan on the state level on May 22nd of this year.

In addition, the Plan on Operational Socio-Economic Activities in Turkmenistan on the Fight against the Coronavirus Pandemic was affirmed on July 3rd of the current year.

Currently, jointly with the United Nations’ agencies, Turkmenistan is starting to develop the third National Plan which will cover the humanitarian aspect of the preventive measures against the COVID-19 infection that were implemented by the country.

Today, the issues of the pandemic are subject to professional researches, scientific studies and developments.  Scientists of many countries are currently involved in this work and based on deep scientific analysis, they are obtaining significant results already today, which play an important practical role  in the process of the fight against the pandemic.

One of such occasions became the address of 239 scientists from 32 countries of the world with an open letter to the Director-General of the World Health Organization, published on July 4th of the current year which contains an information on the results of scientific researches, confirming the possibility of the spread of the new type coronavirus through tiny aerosol droplets, retained in the air for a long time.

Based on the researches of the medical scientific community of Turkmenistan, the Turkmen side supports the abovementioned scientific results.

In this regard, it is pertinent to note that the multi-year researches of the Turkmen doctors, ecologists, and specialists in the field of hydrometeorology and other areas of science prove that the substances posing danger for the human health, including the viruses, can be transmitted through air flow in the sensitive ecological environment of Central Asia.

That being said, it is worth indicating that the air masses forming in the zone of the ecological disaster, caused by the drying of the Aral Sea, pose an explicit threat and have a severe negative impact on the nature, climate, and health of the people, residing in the Aral Sea area and far beyond it. The dust and salt storms transmitting severely harmful substances from the bottom of the dried Aral Sea extend for thousands of kilometers and pose a real danger for the human health.

Today, the position of Turkmenistan with regard to the Aral problem is well known to the world. During his speech at the Sustainable Development Summit “Rio+20” on June 22nd, 2012, the President of Turkmenistan underlined that the problem of the Aral Sea had currently “reached far beyond the region and gained a truly global scope.”

That is why the establishment of the UN Special Programme for the Aral Sea Basin was proposed.

With the aim of practical implementation of the given proposal by the world community through the UN, upon the initiative of Turkmenistan, two Resolutions of the UN General Assembly on “Cooperation between the United Nations and the International Fund for Saving the Aral Sea” were adopted which created a firm basis for multilateral collaboration on resolving the Aral problem on the UN platform.

In order to expand the multilateral cooperation on the subject of the Aral issue, the draft concept of the UN Special Programme for the Aral Sea Basin was presented at the sixth Session of the Committee on Disaster Risk Reduction of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) which was held in August 2019. Following the results attained after the consideration of the abovementioned document, the draft ESCAP resolution on the issues of further work on the mentioned Special Programme was prepared. The consideration of this draft document has been scheduled   during the period of the next session of the Commission, due to take place in May 2021.

Great attention to the resolution of the Aral Sea problems has also been drawn in the Regional Environmental Program for Sustainable Development in Central Asia, developed within the framework of the chairmanship of Turkmenistan in the International Fund for Saving the Aral Sea during the period of 2017-2019 and approved by the decision of the Interstate Commission on Sustainable Development of the IFAS in October of 2019 in the city of Nukus of the Republic of Uzbekistan.

Based on the above-stated, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Turkmenistan is underlining the preparedness of the Turkmen side to continue the wide multi-layered cooperation on the regional and international levels on the fight against the pandemic, including the issues of detailed studying of the impacts of exogenous factors on the spread of coronavirus COVID-19.

For this purpose, in the near future Turkmenistan is going to implement a set of further practical measures within the framework of implementation of the agreements, reached with international partners and aimed at strengthening solidarity in the fight against the new type of infection.

Press service of the

MFA of Turkmenistan