Statement by Amb. Alexander Lukashevich, Permanent Representative Of The Russian Federation To The OSCE, At The High-Level Inauguration Meeting Of The Renewed OSCE European Security Dialogue, Vienna, February 8, 2022
8 February 2022 20:33
194-08-02-2022
Distinguished Mr. Chairman-in-Office,
I am grateful for the opportunity to speak at the high-level meeting to follow up on the idea of the Polish Chairmanship to launch a "Renewed OSCE European Security Dialogue".
To be honest, we are puzzled by such a hasty convening of this meeting. Haste makes waste, as they say. That's the test. The draft that we have in front of us is exceedingly raw. Our delegation has warned the Chairmanship during the preliminary consultations that putting this document on the agenda for the 57 participating States was premature.
It is our firm belief that to make any action in the OSCE a success, it should be thoroughly and comprehensively ascertained reflecting positions of all participating States as mandated by the Porto Ministerial decision of 2002. Meaning that the CiO needs a consensual foundation for its endeavors.
Despite the reference to a "general endorsement", as stated in the non-paper distributed by the Chairmanship, the Russian Federation has not supported the initiative. Our position remained unchanged: we need to focus on negotiations with the United States of America and NATO Member States where we seek long-term legally-binding security guarantees. Lack of progress on these two tracks will make deliberations in Vienna futile. Besides, OSCE is not in a position to negotiate any legally binding agreements.
As for the proposed substance of the Renewed OSCE European Security Dialogue, it, in essence, duplicates the already existing OSCE formats, namely the OSCE Forum for Security Co-operation (FSC), the Structured Dialogue on the current and future challenges and risks to security in the OSCE area (SD) as well as other instruments dealing with non-military aspects of security.
It is hard to understand why the Chairmanship has decided to separate the Renewed OSCE European Security Dialogue from the FSC and SD activities. We heard the arguments that the issues of transparency as well as confidence and security building measures are being discussed within these two formats with overused expressions in a politicized manner. But let me remind that those are the discussions in the PC that are marked with the spirit of verbal confrontation and accusatory rhetoric. The FSC and SD were created specifically for professionally addressing the above-mentioned problems, inter alia, with direct involvement of military experts. If and when all 57 participating States decide to launch a result-oriented dialogue on de-escalation and confidence- and security-building measures, the Forum for Security Co-operation will be the right place to proceed.
It is noteworthy that already at the stage of the Concept Paper the Chairmanship has made a discussion on the modernization of the Vienna Document 2011 a part of the first "cluster". We have consistently explained that the European Security has to be addressed in a comprehensive manner while introducing technical changes to the VD-2011 per se will not help resolving the accumulated fundamental problems. A window of opportunity to deal with that specific issue could open only when NATO renounces the policy of deterring Russia. In deeds, not in words.
At this stage we deem it most important to clarify how the Western participating States understand the principle of the indivisibility of security and how they intend to fulfil their commitment not to strengthen their security at the expense of the security of other states. We expect to receive prompt answers to the pertinent request by the Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov and stress that we still look forward to hearing the national positions rather than an orchestrated reply. Their analysis will let us define future steps on the track of the European Security.
Mr. Chairman-in-Office,
The current state of affairs is mostly discouraging. After more than a decade following the adoption at the highest political level of the Astana Commemorative Declaration there has been no political will in the OSCE to seek practical solutions to build a free, democratic, common and indivisible Euro-Atlantic and Eurasian security community stretching from Vancouver to Vladivostok. It's worth reminding that the comprehensive formula on the indivisibility of security was set at the OSCE Istanbul Summit in 1999. And, unfortunately, things have not budged an inch.
As for now we see no added value to take part in discussions proposed by the Polish Chairmanship, specifically against the backdrop of practically zero results from the notorious "Corfu process" and "Helsinki +40". If the Chairmanship intends to launch a new negotiating format, it would be better to build upon the discussions on strengthening the effectiveness of the OSCE. It is high time for us all to focus on achieving balance between the three "baskets", overcoming geographical and thematic disparities in functioning of the OSCE institutions and field operations as well as improving the election observation methodology and on many others similar avenues endorsed by the numerous previous Ministerial decisions. We would recommend that the Polish Chairmanship-in-Office channel its energy in that direction.
Thank you for your attention
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