Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergei Lavrov said at last all he thinks of the OSCE.
Photo: AFP
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Unfrozen Conflict
// Sergei Lavrov raised the issue of Russia’s membership in the OSCE
Session of OSCE foreign ministers ended in Brussels yesterday. Russia and the West disagreed on all key issues: the OSCE’s role and its future chair, elections monitoring and frozen conflicts. Russia even raised for the first time the question of the OSCE’s future and Russia’s membership in the organization. It threatens to bring Europe and the world back to the split of Cold War times.
The central issue of the recent OSCE session was reforming the organization created back in 1975. All members admit the necessity of changes. However, Russia and the West, primarily the U.S., seriously disagreed on the reforms’ contents. Thus, the meeting between representatives of 56 OSCE members turned into a wrangle between Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergei Lavrov and US Under Secretary of State Nicholas Burns.
Moscow’s chief claim to the OSCE is that the focus of its activities was lately shifted on human rights, while 2 other directions (military-political cooperation, and economy) are left without attention. “The OSCE, due to its complex approach to security, cannot and should not deal with human rights exclusively,” said Sergei Lavrov during the session.
Moscow is especially dissatisfied with the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), the OSCE’s watchdog for elections. It is not surprising, for the estimations of CIS observers and those of the ODIHR are usually diametrically different during the elections in former USSR republics. CIS observers see the elections as transparent and democratic, while the ODIHR speaks of many grave violations. So, Lavrov suggested yesterday that the OSCE should create a working group which would deal with reforming the ODIHR.
However, the U.S. strongly opposed the idea. Nicholas Burns said the U.S. will block any attempts to weaken the OSCE’s role in election monitoring. Clearly having Russia in mind, he added: “Some countries have begun questioning the very principles which underlie our common values.”
The issue of frozen conflicts caused further disagreement. Burns criticized Moscow almost outspokenly for using economic pressure against its neighbors. So that no one has any doubts, he added: “We should give our full support to Georgia and Moldavia.” The criticism was supported by other OSCE members, who demanded that Moscow decide on pulling its troops out of Transdniestria, Abkhazia, and South Ossetia.
After such reproaches, Russia’s demand to ratify the adapted Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) was rejected by OSCE members from the NATO and the EU. Moscow’s arguments that the treaty, which establishes new restrictions on the types of armaments after NATO expansion to the East, is the keystone of Europe’s security were disregarded. NATO said they will agree to ratify the adapted CFE only after the complete pullout of Russian troops from Georgia and Moldavia.
In response, Lavrov criticized the attempts of “some forces” to use the OSCE as a “foothold for promoting one-sided politically-loaded approaches to frozen conflicts”. Such approaches, he said, “have nothing in common with the real efforts for strong settlement of conflicts”. Russian minister urged the OSCE to go along some basic principles when settling regional conflicts, that is the parties of a conflict should reach agreement themselves, the stands of both parties should be unconditionally taken into account, military solution should be unacceptable, and the settlement should go through some stages.
“They do not like to be brought to bay and told what they should do,” said an OSCE official, who asked to be left unnamed, about Russia’s stand. Another front of Russia-West opposition was the issue of Kazakhstan’s presidency in the OSCE. For a few years already, Astana has been striving for chairing the OSCE in 2009. This time, the organization’s members had to decide on the issue. Lavrov actively supported Kazakhstan. CIS states did not mind, along with some west-European countries like Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and France. Yet, the U.S. and Great Britain categorically opposed the idea, saying Kazakhstan still has problems with its democracy. That was enough not to pass the decision of Astana’s presidency.
Seeing that Russia’s and the West’s views on the OSCE’s mission are oppositely different, Lavrov took an unexpected step. He suggested to decide on whether to return to the OSCE’s true roots, or to “legalize its transformation into a human rights organization”. Anyway, he added, “our countries will consider whether to enter or not to enter an organization like that.”
It means that Russia, in fact, for the first time raised the question of its membership in the OSCE, and of keeping the organization in its present state at all. Both would have serious consequences, for the OSCE split would become a big step towards the split of Europe and the world, characteristic of Cold War period.
Gennady Sysoev
All the Article in Russian as of Dec. 06, 2006
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