Extensive security arrangements in Helsinki next week for OSCE conference

Security Police say terrorism and large demonstrations unlikely

Sergei Lavrov

Condoleezza Rice

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Police in Finland are preparing extensive security measures to be put in place during next week’s foreign ministers’ meeting of the Organisation of Security and Cooperation in Europe.
      Officials have not heard of any terrorist threats or of plans for street unrest.
     
“No significant threats have emerged. I believe that everything will go peacefully”, says Kari Harju, head of the security office of the Security Police (SUPO).
      The actual OSCE conference will be held on Thursday and Friday, but civil servants’ meetings will be held at the Helsinki Fair Centre already from the early part of the week.
      Attending the meeting will be foreign ministers of OSCE member states who could be potential targets of violence, including US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
     
“At international meetings at this level there is always a threat of terrorism, in principle, that we need to prepare for. However, there is no concrete threat affecting this meeting”, says SUPO’s Kari Harju.
      Harju believes that there could be some peaceful demonstrations and other publicity stunts during the conference, but he does not expect clashes between demonstrators and police of the kind that took place during the ASEM conference in 2006.
     
Security for the conference will be provided by the Helsinki Police Department, with the help of reinforcements from around the country.
      The conference will lead to exceptional traffic arrangements, since major thoroughfares in the centre of Helsinki will be cut off from time to time, as the delegations are driven between their hotels and the Fair Centre.
     
There will be restrictions on movement near the Fair Centre and the hotels, and the air space above the venue of the conference will be closed to small aircraft.
      The guests and delegations might have some of their own armed security personnel along as well.
      Finland says that it will grant carry permits for a semi-automatic weapon to no more than one security official per delegation.
      “The starting point is that Finnish police officers will be responsible for all security arrangements”, says Teuvo Saikkonen of the Helsinki police.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Stubb wants to get OSCE to agree on political declaration (21.11.2008)
  OSCE Chairmanship keeps Finland busy to very end (1.11.2008)

Helsingin Sanomat