The UN, UNESCO and regional questions

Uzbekistan became a member of the United Nations on 2 March 1992; on 28 September 1993 its representative addressed the General Assembly and set out the country’s foreign policy views. A UN office opened in Tashkent in 1993, and on 29 October of that year the country joined UNESCO. UNESCO’s World Heritage List includes the Itchan Kala of Khiva (1990), the historic centre of Bukhara (1993), Shakhrisabz (2000) and Samarkand, crossroads of cultures (2001); natural and Silk Road sites were added later (for example the Western Tien-Shan in 2016). On Afghanistan, the “6+2” group was formed in 1997 and an international conference was held in Tashkent in 1999; Uzbekistan has favoured solving the conflict by political rather than military means, and in 2010 Uzbekistan completed the Hairatan–Mazar-i-Sharif railway in Afghanistan, serving peaceful economic links. On the Aral, the International Fund for Saving the Aral Sea (IFAS) was set up in 1993, and in 2018 a UN trust fund for the Aral Sea region was established. On 19 September 2017 the head of state addressed the 72nd session of the UN General Assembly, and in 2018 a resolution on enlightenment and religious tolerance was adopted.