From left: San Marino's Permanent Representative to the OSCE Fausta Morganti, Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, and Romania's Foreign Minister Lazar Comanescu, attend the working luncheon of the OSCE Ministerial Council in Helsinki, Finland, on Thursday Dec. 4, 2008. Some 50 foreign ministers attending the Ministerial Council will discuss conflict prevention and enhanced European security during two-day talks.
Photo: AP
| Other Photos |
 |
|
 |
Russia Determines OSCE Agenda
// The war in Georgia helped the West to understand Dmitry Medvedev’s ideas better
Yesterday the annual meeting of OSCE foreign office chiefs opened in Helsinki, with the war in the Caucasus highlighted. Russian diplomats, headed by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, prepared for heated debates, but, to Moscow’s surprise, the majority of the participants hailed Russian President Dmitry Medvedev’s idea to develop a new European security agreement and suggested concentrating on it. In Helsinki, Kommersant correspondent Alexander Gabuev found that many OSCE members regard this document as insurance against Moscow’s new aggression.
Military-style meeting
“When taking over the duties of the Chairman-in-Office I set out to prove that the OSCE can bring concrete results and make a difference. I have been inspired by the determination of the peoples of the OSCE area to improve their livelihoods and strive for democratic reforms. At the same time, I never want to see again what I witnessed in Georgia in August: casualties of war, wanton destruction and people fleeing from their homes,” OSCE Chairman-in-Office, Finland’s Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb said making his opening remarks. “We decided to devote this meeting to the war in Georgia and the outlook for European security.”
In the lobby the most popular words were Russia, Georgia and war. “The irony is that the meeting is taking place in Helsinki, where the final act, which laid the foundation for European security, was adopted, with inviolability of frontiers being its key principle. And today the OSCE discusses Russia’s recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia,” a European diplomat complained to Kommersant.
Sergey Lavrov and Georgia’s Foreign Minister Eka Tkeshelashvili were the meeting’s key figures. They both pretended not to notice each other. Members of the Russian delegation told Kommersant that in the lobby Sergey Lavrov met with many of his counterparts, including British and German Foreign Office Chiefs, David Miliband and Frank-Walter Steinmeier, respectively, as well as other diplomats; he only didn’t speak with Ms Tkeshelashvili. Alexander Stubb tried to rectify the situation constantly mentioning the names of the two ministers together and telling the delegates that he spent a lot of time with them.
“Sergey, I can hardly remember how many times we have met this year — five or six times since August. Eka, my wife is even jealous: she says I see you more often than her,” the OSCE Chairman-in-Office tried to joke at the opening of the meeting.
But Sergey Lavrov and Eka Tkeshelashvili were not ironical at all. Every time the war was mentioned, both ministers frowned. And since every speaker touched upon that matter, the Russian and Georgian ministers looked gloomy throughout the opening.
Sergey Lavrov had more reasons to worry. A year ago the OSCE summit in Madrid boiled down to an extremely harsh discussion of the system of monitoring elections in the post-Soviet space: Moscow had refused to admit observers from the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) to the Duma elections, and Vladimir Putin advised the organization “not to stick its snotty nose” in Russia’s affairs. Moscow also had to withstand pressure from other OSCE members after the Russian president announced a moratorium on the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE). And this year, after the war in the Caucasus and Russian president Dmitry Medvedev’s statement about the possibility of deploying Iskander missile complexes to the Kaliningrad Region, one could hardly expect the meeting in Helsinki to be smooth and easy to Russia.
Protective plan
Moscow was going to base its arguments on President Medvedev’s initiative to conclude an agreement for European security. “We intend to use the OSCE forum to promote our president’s idea. The document’s backbone is ready, so we hope that the meeting will be devoted to discussing the Russian initiative mainly,” a high-ranking official with the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs told Kommersant ahead of the meeting in Helsinki. Moscow was probably inspired by the fact that at the Russia-EU summit in Nice France’s President Nicolas Sarkozy spoke in favor of this idea and suggested discussing it in OSCE in mid-2009.
However, the Russian delegation didn’t need to apply much effort to advance Dmitry Medvedev’s ideas in the community of western diplomats: Europeans were keen to develop them. Alexander Stubb was the first to speak about it.
“The idea President Medvedev put forward is rather sound; therefore we expect to make its discussion one of the main points at the summit, we will address it during the luncheon, and we are looking forward to hearing what Sergey Lavrov will say,” he told Kommersant. “I discussed this idea with Mr. Lavrov and Presidential Aide Sergey Prikhodko in Moscow. We even received Russian drafts of this agreement.”
Western diplomats participating in the meeting told Kommersant that the interest in Dmitry Medvedev's ideas arose only after the war in the Caucasus, although he had voiced them in early summer, during his visit to Germany. “Given Russia’s actions in Georgia, this idea acquired a new meaning: nobody wants it all to repeat in another country,” interlocutors of Kommersant said. Meanwhile, in Helsinki the Russian President’s idea started to be modified. The majority of participants refused to admit that Dmitry Medvedev was the author of those initiatives. The ministers who took the floor called the project “Presidents Medvedev and Sarkozy’s offers regarding the Euro-Atlantic security.”
The majority of the ministers who addressed the Council yesterday supported that idea. As Alexander Stubb had promised, the ministerial dinner focused on that matter. Later Finland’s Foreign Minister stated that the Russian draft was not discussed at the meeting. “Ministers asked a lot of questions. Sergey Lavrov outlined the Russian position and was very glad that we discussed these ideas together for the first time,” he said. However, according to Alexander Stubb, the participants of lunch discussions did not manage to determine when an all-European summit will be held and whether it will take place at all.
Pinning hopes on Obama
One of the reasons for the realisation of Dmitry Medvedev’s initiative being jeopardized was the U.S. lacking enthusiasm about the idea. “The existing security system in Europe, where the EU and NATO ensure safety, suits almost everyone. There are only a few states which demand to be treated a special way. Those are the countries which unleash wars in the region,” a U.S. representative, who took part in the meeting, told Kommersant. Also, head of the U.S. delegation, Under Secretary for Political Affairs William Burns stated that the U.S. doesn’t mind discussing this topic, but the existing security mode in Europe is good as such. Interestingly, he said nothing about Dmitry Medvedev’s initiating the discussion.
The Russian party barely applied any effort to win over its American partners. According to interlocutors of Kommersant with the Russian delegation, Sergey Lavrov did not even plan to meet with them. Apparently, Moscow has abandoned the idea of coming to a single agreement with the outgoing U.S. administration, pinning all hopes on U.S. President-elect Barack Obama’s team.
Since holding a summit and concluding a new treaty are inconceivable without Washington, debates about the all-European summit, which Moscow promotes, will not start before next year – after Barack Obama’s inauguration and a reshuffle in the U.S. Department of State. According to Alexander Stubb another requirement is Russian offers’ becoming more concrete. “Many countries would like to learn first what will be discussed,” he said. Sergey Lavrov will have one more opportunity to articulate Russia’s position when he delivers a speech tonight.
Alexander Gabuev
All the Article in Russian as of Dec. 05, 2008
|
|
|
