Ashgabat, 1 November 2011 – Mr. Ercan SAKA, head of the UNODC Program Office in Turkmenistan delivered a two-hour lecture at the Foreign Relations Institute as a UN outreach activity on the occasion of the UN Day 2011.

The audience represented by the senior students and teaching staff (around 60 people) was very interested in the topic and actively participated by responding to questions asked by Ercan in the course of the lecture.

The lecture was a real success.

The first part of the lecture included the brief information over the UN, ECOSOC, Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND), UN Drug and Crime related conventions, the UNODC mandates and its activities in Central Asia. The CND was elaborated in details due to the Turkmenistan’s membership to this entity for the period of 2012-2015.

During the second part of the lecture, the audience was informed over the criminal proceedings, money laundering and illicit drug trafficking situation in Central Asia region. Finally, the lecture ended with the counter-narcotic measures taken by the Government of Turkmenistan and current and potential partnership with the UNODC.

The teaching staff and students of the Institute also received the UN in Turkmenistan brochure printed for this year UN Day celebrations and UN SG address on the occasion of UN Day.

In the end of the lecture, the appreciation for this UN initiative came from both Professor Amangeldi Rakhmanov, who, by the way, was Turkmenistan's Permanent Representative to the UN and Ambassador to China, and the students of the Institute who spoke perfect English. They hoped that such activity will be continued in the future.