OSCE can serve as security model for other regions, German Foreign Minister says

VIENNA, 18 January 2007 - The OSCE has played an important role in European integration and its confidence-building measures serve as a model for other regions of the world, but its participating States should work even harder to achieve security and stability through dialogue, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said today.

Addressing the OSCE's Permanent Council, Minister Steinmeier underscored how the Organization and the European Union can work together, for example in Central Asia and Kosovo. Germany has the European Union's rotating presidency in the first half of this year.

"If European integration is a success story then the OSCE has played an important role in that," the Minister said, adding today, too, the OSCE was making an invaluable contribution towards security, stability and rule of law. "The long-term confidence building which we practise is certainly seen as a model in other regions of the world."

The OSCE would play a central role in the EU's strategy on Central Asia, notably in education, the rule of law and border management, Minister Steinmeier said. The EU would also draw on the OSCE's strengths in human rights, democratization, the fight against terrorism and work on the economy and environment.

After a future status settlement for Kosovo, the EU would build on the OSCE's experience and co-operate closely with the Organization's mission there, he said.

Minister Steinmeier said the OSCE should promote its arms control successes in other regions and specifically discuss them with the Organization's co-operation partners in Asia and the Mediterranean.

The Minister said participating States must not accept deadlock in the so-called frozen conflicts - unresolved conflicts in countries that were once part of the Soviet Union.

"We urge the parties to accept OSCE mediation and to regard it as an opportunity. Where there is a readiness to engage in constructive dialogue, the EU will lend whatever support it can," he told the Permanent Council, the OSCE's main regular decision-making body.

The Spanish Chairmanship was in a position to provide the OSCE with a higher political profile and the EU was ready to work with others on this, he said.

The Minister said the OSCE needed a frank and intensive dialogue based on the Organization's common values, norms and standards.

He said criticism by others of the OSCE's election monitoring as an instrument for "regime change" was unjustified and urged all 56 participating States to provide election observers.

"The OSCE is the only forum on security policy within the pan-European context. Security and stability must be acquired through political commitment and hard work," Minister Steinmeier said. "I urge you to strive even harder to achieve this."