OSCE Troika ministers meet in Budapest

BUDAPEST, 17 March 1995 - The Chairman-in-Office of the OSCE, Hungarian Foreign Minister László Kovács, hosted a meeting today of the OSCE Troika at Ministerial level. Swiss Foreign Minister Flavio Cotti and Italian State Secretary Emanuele Scamacca attended as well as OSCE Secretary General Wilhelm Höynck and OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities Max van der Stoel. The OSCE Troika represents the three countries holding the last (Italy), the present (Hungary) and the future (Switzerland) chairmanship of the OSCE.

The meeting focused on current OSCE issues and activities with special emphasis on Chechnya and Nagorno-Karabakh. The meeting also considered the operation of OSCE missions in light of Foreign Minister Kovács' plans to visit several countries where the OSCE has deployed field missions. The Troika agreed that these visits should be used to give the missions additional political guidance and to contribute to the progress of implementing their specific mandates.

The Troika assessed the progress achieved by the OSCE since the Budapest Summit, including the work of the new OSCE Institutions. In this context, the Ministers underlined the importance of the first OSCE Senior Council Meeting, scheduled for 30 - 31 March. The Troika stressed the need to make the Senior Council the forum for meeting the high expectations of the OSCE Heads of State or Government by ensuring high-level political participation in setting forth guidelines on key OSCE policy issues.

On Chechnya, Foreign Minister Kovács informed meeting participants about his successful talks with Russian leaders in Moscow last week on establishing a permanent OSCE presence and ensuring OSCE participation in the long-term political process in Chechnya. He said that an OSCE delegation, headed by his personal representative for Chechnya, Ambassador István Gyarmati, was going to Moscow and the region next week to discuss the details and modalities for OSCE involvement.

The Troika was unanimous in supporting the speeding up of preparations for an OSCE peacekeeping operation in Nagorno-Karabakh and expressed full support for the Chairman-in-Office's intention to appeal to OSCE Participating States for financial, material and troop contributions for the peacekeeping mission. The Troika Ministers appealed to the conflicting parties to display a serious political will to make progress in the political process.

The Ministers agreed on the phasing of the operation which will include a detailed contingency plan expected to be finished by the end of March by the OSCE High Level Planning Group, as well as the dispatching of field representatives first, followed by the sending of monitors by early May as part of a gradual deployment of the peacekeeping force. The Ministers emphasized that the launching of the mission presupposes a durable ceasefire and progress in the negotiations for a political settlement.

The Ministers devoted attention to the situation in the FYROM (Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia). They emphasized the need to come to a positive solution on the membership of FYROM in the OSCE and expressed full support for the continuation of the High Commissioner on National Minorities' activities and called for the implementation of his recommendations.