France Info radio
November 22
rench Cooperation Minister Charles Josselin arrived in
Tashkent in Uzbekistan on Thursday. That is where a number of French
humanitarian workers are stuck because the border with Afghanistan is still closed.
Jean-Charles Merdi, who deals with logistics for Medecins du
Monde [French medical charity], hopes that the French minister's visit
will help resolve the situation:
Merdi: "We are going to explain the problems to him that we encounter here regarding the blockade that exists on the movement of barges between Termez [in far south of Uzbekistan] and Jeyretan [in northern Afghanistan] and also explain to him the problems that we have encountered with the United Nations. We above all hope that it will be resolved as soon as possible, at a diplomatic level with the French state, the Uzbek government and the United Nations, so that the diplomatic efforts move faster and so that the doors open for us, whether it is in the port here, above all for the barges, because otherwise we are blocked in and we are currently thinking about taking the goods out of Uzbekistan to take them through somewhere else to take them to Mazar-e Sharif, in other words to put all the goods in lorries here in Termez and pass through Turkmenistan and then take them to Mazar-e Sharif."