You're reading: Kazakhstan’s Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe summit opens to discuss security

ASTANA, Dec 1 (Reuters) - The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe opened its summit in Kazakhstan's capital amid tight security on Wednesday to discuss issues ranging from Afghanistan to terrorism and drug trade.

The top-level meeting of Europe’s 56-member democracy and rights body is a matter of immense personal pride for Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, who is keen to position himself as a major figure on the world stage.

Kazakhstan this year became the first former Soviet nation to assume the rotating chair of the OSCE, and Nazarbayev, who has run his Central Asian nation for more than 20 years, is eager to showcase his windswept new capital Astana to the world.

But official enthusiasm in Astana has been soured by criticism by human rights groups and the West of Kazakhstan’s poor track record on democracy during its chairmanship of the OSCE.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton pressed Central Asian governments late on Tuesday to expand democratic freedoms. She also mentioned the case of jailed Kazakh human rights defender Yevgeny Zhovtis when she met with students in Astana.

Thirty-eight heads of state, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and senior officials have converged on the frost-bitten Kazakh capital to take part in the first OSCE Heads of State summit since 1999.

They will address "urgent security challenges including transitional threats such as terrorism and trafficking, the recent unrest in Kyrgyzstan and the situation in Afghanistan", an OSCE statement quoted its Chairperson-in-Office, Kazakh Foreign Minister Kanat Saudabayev, as saying.

Frozen post-Soviet conflicts, including the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute between Armenia and Azerbaijan, Moldova’s rebel region of Transdniestria and Georgia’s separatist regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia also are expected to be on the agenda.

VOLATILE REGION

Kazakhstan, Central Asia’s largest economy, has watched with unease as radical Islam and drug trafficking have become more prevalent in the sparsely populated region bordering Afghanistan.

Neighbouring Kyrgyzstan was shattered this year by the violent overthrow of its president in April and the worst ethnic riots in its modern history in June, when at least 400 people were killed.

In nearby Tajikistan, government troops have been fighting for more than two months to flush out Islamist rebels from the mountains in the country’s east.

Security measures around the OSCE summit were strict. The venue has been sealed off by concrete slabs and heavily armed patrols in armoured personnel carriers.

Snipers dressed in black patrolled the roofs of buildings, and residents of apartment blocks in central Astana were told not to open or even approach windows when motorcades with high-ranking guests drive past.

Schoolchildren and university students were given two days of holiday, and shops and markets near the summit venue were shut down.