OSCE TO TACKLE GEORGIA PROBLEMS
The Moscow Times
Dec 3 2008
Russia
HELSINKI — Europe’s main security and human rights body will this
week discuss problems lingering since Russia’s brief war with Georgia
and hopes that its military monitors can soon return to breakaway
South Ossetia.
Foreign ministers from the 56-nation Organization for Security and
Cooperation will meet Thursday and Friday in Helsinki, the city where
its forerunner, the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe,
was founded in 1975. But some of the spirit of 1975 may be missing
following the OSCE’s failure in August to stop Moscow and Tbilisi
— which are members of the organization — from going to war over
South Ossetia.
"It was quite a dramatic development," OSCE spokesman Martin Nesirky
said of the five-day war. "For that reason, it clearly colors the
conversations that will go on, but it doesn’t necessarily poison
the atmosphere."
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is not attending the meeting
of the OSCE, which groups countries from Europe, North America and
Central Asia. She will be in India. Even if Rice attended, Finnish
officials said it would be hard to secure U.S. commitments on any
issues because President-elect Barack Obama does not take office
until Jan. 20.
Finland, which hands the OSCE’s annual leadership to Greece next
month, wants an agreement on a joint political declaration at the
meeting — something last achieved in 2002 in Portugal. This could be
hard because of the impact of the Georgia-Russia war. "The odds are
against us. … We have the crisis in Georgia, this sets the tone,
so we shouldn’t have high expectations," Aleksi Harkonen, head of
the Finnish OSCE Chairmanship Task Force, said of the prospects of
agreeing on a joint declaration.
He said it may be better to settle for trying to boost talks between
Russia and Georgia in Geneva on easing mutual tensions.
OSCE military monitors left South Ossetia during the war, but Greek
Foreign Minister Dora Bakoyanni said in an interview that Athens
would do all it could to secure their return.
"There must be OSCE observers," she said. "We must be able to have a
complete, realistic picture of what’s really happening. If goodwill
is expressed by all, we’ll find a solution.
Russia criticized the OSCE for pulling out its observers but has
said the eight monitors who were there before the war are entitled
to return. The OSCE says their return has been blocked.
Finnish Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb said talks on the impasse
would continue in Moscow on Dec. 8.
He said the OSCE ministers would discuss the dispute between Azerbaijan
with Armenia over the mountainous Caucasus enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh.
The ministers will also discuss Russia’s call for a new European
security pact. France, which holds the rotating European Union
presidency, has said it is ready to discuss such a pact, but the
United States has greeted the proposal with reluctance.