Black Sea Region: Priorities and Perspectives for the 21st Century
Tbilisi, Georgia
April 13-14, 1999

The conference involved representatives and specialists from the six Black sea countries, plus Azerbaijan and United States.The conference was funded by the United States Information Agency and administered by the International Research & Exchanges Board (IREX) – Tbilisi.

The conference focused on the rapidly transforming and developing trade, politics and security within the region. Discussants looked at how integration between states of the region has been developed so far through BSEC, TRACECA, GUAM (Georgian-Ukraine-Azerbaijan-Moldova) and other regional and international bodies.

A number of interesting problems has been discussed during the conference: Security – Fragile Statehood - by Alex Rondeli, from the Georgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Irakli Mchedlishvili, Founder of the Center for Peace and International Relations Studies (CPIRS) and a Policy Analyst for the Parliament Committee on Foreign Affairs; Economic Development - Revival - by Scott Horton, an Associate Professor at Columbia University and a Partner in the law firm Patterson, Belknap, Webb & Tyler, who discussed economic partnerships within the region as essential for developing trade, Boris Medvedev, Deputy Director for the Department of Economy within the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who saw BSEC playing a central role in development of the region and Lillian Popescu, Director of Policy Planning within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who spoke about Romania as "ideally located between the Silk and Amber Roads"; Trade Incentives - No Holiday, where conference participants compared the workings of BSEC with that of other international organizations; Legal Frameworks, participants discussed the reduction over the past several years of transport in the Black Sea region, a contradiction within US policy regarding oil transit policy in the region, etc. They also discussed legal reform and ecology problems.

This text and the above photo has been developed according the review on the web-site of International Research and Exchange Board - Tbilisi, Georgia (IREX). You can get the full report here (725Kb). Find photo album of conference here (2,543Kb).