Stubb regrets failure to reach declaration at OSCE meeting

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Finland’s Minister for Foreign Affairs Alexander Stubb (Nat. Coalition Party) said on Friday that the Helsinki meeting of the Ministerial Council of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe came close to reaching agreement on a joint declaration.
     “A word here, a word there, a comma here, a comma there”, is how he described the situation at a press conference on Friday evening after the conclusion of the two-day meeting of OSCE foreign ministers.
     
Instead of a joint declaration, which Finland had set as its main goal, there was a statement by the Chairman - a summary of Finland’s interpretation of the political results of the meeting.
     Reaching consensus on a political declaration apparently foundered mainly on opposition by Russia.
     While he was sorry that no declaration was reached, Stubb did not want to blame anyone.
     “These declarations are born together, and they fall together”, Stubb said at the press conference.
     However, the failure was sufficiently upsetting that Stubb attached the text that he had put forward as an appendix to the minutes of the meeting.
     
Reasons for the failure to reach agreement included Russia’s opposition to the stated obligation to abide by the cease fire agreement between Georgia and Russia, and the demand to deploy more OSCE observers in South Ossetia.
     Furthermore, Russia did not want to accept parts of the declaration concerning limitations on conventional weapons.
     A declaration on the Transnistria region also failed to move forward.
     The biggest concrete step taken at the meeting was the approval of the declaration on Nagorno Karabakh, calling for further negotiations between the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan.
     
US Undersecretary of State Daniel Fried issued a statement saying that he is not interested in debating the theology of the two sides. In his view, Armenia and Azerbaijan should remember that they will be neighbours forever, and that they should seek to resolve the conflict, keeping this fact in mind.
     A proposal by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov for a new European security arrangement might prove to be the most notable initiative at the meeting.
     Even though there were no actual results, nearly all of those who took the floor at the meeting on Friday, said that discussions need to continue.
     On Friday, Lavrov alleged that the OSCE did not act in Georgia even though it knew that war was coming.
     
The claim was not a new one. Foreign Minister Stubb noted that the OSCE operates on the resources that the member states give it. In this case, the resource was between three and eight observers in South Ossetia.
     “If someone is looking for a scapegoat, let him look somewhere else”, Stubb said.
     He stated that it is to the OSCE’s credit that Russia and Georgia can now sit at the same table just four months after fighting a war.
     At the beginning of next year, the Chairmanship of the OSCE goes to Greece.
     Wishing his successor good luck, Stubb presented Greek Foreign Minister Theodora Bakoyannis with a box of Finnish Sisu candy pastilles.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  No joint declaration for OSCE meeting despite last-ditch efforts (5.12.2008)
  Last-minute preparations for OSCE meeting (4.12.2008)

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