VIENNA, 27 June 2011 – NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen will deliver a speech at an OSCE security conference to be held Wednesday to Friday in Vienna.

The OSCE Annual Security Review Conference provides a framework for enhancing security dialogue and for reviewing security work undertaken by the OSCE and its 56 participating States. The theme for this year's meeting is: Toward a Security Community: What has to be Done.

Participants will discuss: transnational threats and challenges and how to strengthen the coherence of the OSCE's response and improve its interaction with other international actors; strengthening the OSCE’s role and effectiveness in early warning, conflict prevention, crisis management and post-conflict rehabilitation work, and challenges and opportunities in the process to revitalize conventional arms control and confidence- and security- building measures.

A special session to be held on Wednesday afternoon will look at how the OSCE can strengthen its interaction with its 12 Partners for Co-operation.

Rasmussen will speak during the opening session, which is open to journalists and set to start at 10 a.m. on Thursday, 30 June, in the Hofburg Congress Centre's Neuer Saal. His speech, as well as introductory remarks by Ambassador Kestutis Jankauskas, Permanent State Secretary at Lithuania's Foreign Ministry, will be webcast live at http://www.osce.org/event/asrc_2011  Rasmussen is expected to have a few minutes to answer journalists' questions upon leaving the Neuer Saal.

Working sessions are closed to the media. The closing session, set to start at 17:45 on 1 July in the Neuer Saal, is open to journalists.
 

For more information, please see the OSCE website:  http://www.osce.org/event/asrc_2011

For admittance to the Hofburg Congress Centre, please bring a valid press card to the security desk (main entrance from the Heldenplatz). Parking is available for the press during the event in the OSCE-reserved parking area on Heldenplatz. Temporary parking permits must be collected from the security desk.