Collective response urgently needed to address indivisible security, Russian Foreign Minister tells OSCE states

VIENNA, 23 June 2009 - Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov called on OSCE States to address the future of Euro-Atlantic security and elaborated on Russian proposals for a legally-binding treaty at the start of the OSCE Annual Security Review Conference in Vienna today. 

"Today we are coming up against no less dangerous threats of a global nature and these challenges require genuine collective responses. However, to create the basis for seeking such responses we will have to tackle the systemic shortcomings which we have seen in Euro-Atlantic security," he said.

"The most important systemic shortcoming remains the fact that in the past 20 years, we have not been able to work out guarantees for the principles of indivisible security."

Lavrov, who is the high-level guest at the 2009 Conference, discussed Russian President Dmitry Medvedev's proposal for a legally-binding treaty on European security, and called for a meeting to discuss co-operative security. He detailed four building blocks of the treaty, including the basic relations between states, arms control and confidence-building measures, conflict management, and co-operation between states and organizations to counter new challenges.

He also addressed the need to renew discussion of the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) treaty.

"To develop the dialogue on pan-European security we propose a meeting of the heads of key international organizations - OSCE, NATO, the EU, the CIS and CSTO - on the basis of the Platform for Co-operative Security which we accepted within the framework of the OSCE," he said.

"The theme of this meeting would be to examine the security strategies of each of these organizations. It would be an important step forward in working out common principles leading towards genuinely indivisible security in the Euro-Atlantic space."

The OSCE Chairperson-in-Office, Greek Foreign Minister Dora Bakoyannis, has invited OSCE foreign ministers to an informal meeting to discuss the future of European security this weekend, on 27 and 28 June in Corfu.

"We support the initiative of the Greek Chairmanship and Minister Dora Bakoyannis to organize an informal ministerial meeting in Corfu," said Lavrov. "What is at stake is a fundamental security concept in the Euro-Atlantic area on the basis of co-operation."

The two-day 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.