Moscow, 7 July 2004

The special representatives of the Ministers of Foreign Affairs at the level of Deputy Ministers or their equivalents (hereinafter referred to as special representatives) of the participating States to the BLACKSEAFOR Agreement (Bulgaria, Georgia, Romania, the Russian federation, Turkey and Ukraine)) met in Moscow for political consultations on July 7, 2004 under the provisions of Article VI of the BLACKSEAFOR Agreement.

Consultations were held to take stock of current BLACKSEAFOR activities and to consider the potential of the BLACKSEAFOR, under Article IV / 2 / f of the said Agreement, to address new risks and challenges to security in the Black Sea.

The special representatives reaffirmed their conviction that co-operative action in the Black Sea aimed at preventing the threat of terrorism and illicit trafficking in weapons of mass destruction, their means of delivery and related materials, in keeping with the relevant UNSC Resolutions, notably Resolutions 1373 of 28 September, 2001 and 1540 of 28 april, 2004, should be undertaken. It is understood that this co-operative action shall not impede legitimate economic, scientific and technological cooperation.

The special representatives agreed that the littoral States will uphold their responsibility for countering the threats, risks and challenges in the Black Sea. The BLACKSEAFOR is an instrument available to be used effectively for the achievement of this objective, as appropriate, under the BLACKSEAFOR Agreement.

The special representatives decided to establish under Article VI / 2 of the BLACKSEAFOR Agreement an ad hoc subordinate group composed of senior level experts from the MFA and / or MOD including legal advisers to conduct a comprehensive analysis and to elaborate principles and modalities of the employment of the BLACKSEAFOR for the purposes of preventing the threat of terrorism and illicit trafficking in weapons of mass destruction, their means of delivery and related materials. This initial results of this work are to be reported to the special representatives at their next meeting.

The special representatives appreciated the progress achieved so far by the Black Sea Naval Commanders (BSNC) Committee on this issue and invite the BSNC to finalize its work as soon as possible on:

• The drafting of specific proposals to enhance cooperation in the area of command, control and communication, as well as information sharing among the naval staffs. It will include the consideration of the establishment of a permanent command center and an information network center by naval authorities on a rotational basis in accordance with the change of command of the BLACKSEAFOR on the territory of that Participating State;
• The inclusion in activation programs of the BLACKSEAFOR the issue of training in countering terrorism and illicit trafficking in weapons of mass destruction, their means of delivery and related materials starting from 2004;
• The scheduling of two activations per year, as well as the possibility to conduct unscheduled activations, as appropriate, of the BLACKSEAFOR as an On-Call Force, and report the intermediate results of the work accomplished to the special representatives of the participating States at their next meeting.
• An assessment of the operational availability of the assets assigned to the BLACKSEAFOR by the littoral states.

The special representatives will consider the above-mentioned reports at their next meeting in Kyiv early 2005 under Article VI wit a view to adopting decisions, as appropriate