OREANDA-NEWS. December 3, 2009. Athens (Greece) hosted a meeting of the OSCE Ministerial Council (MC), which was attended by Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov.

On the eve of the meeting the CSTO member countries circulated in the OSCE their joint statement in support of the initiative of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev for developing a European Security Treaty.

In general, the MC meeting was held under the banner of the Corfu Process of informal discussions, which began to be conducted in the OSCE under the influence of the Russian initiative after the informal meeting of Ministers in Corfu, Greece, in June this year. In Athens it was decided that the informal Corfu dialogue will continue in 2010 during Kazakhstan's chairmanship of the OSCE.

The Russian side regrets that due to the unrealistic and politicized stance of a number of delegations on conflict settlement and arms control, the Ministerial Council once again failed to reach a consensus on the draft general political declaration.

Despite this, a useful dialogue took place in Athens, with decisions adopted on certain important security and cooperation issues. In co-sponsorship with several partners, the Russian Federation had prepared towards the ministerial meeting its proposals on some topical problems.

In particular, it was proposed to start work on upgrading the 1999 Vienna Document on Confidence- and Security-Building Measures in the military field. The importance was stressed of developing common approaches to conflict prevention and settlement in order to avoid the recurrence of situations similar to the attempts by Mikhail Saakashvili to use military force.

In the spirit of the new beginning in relations between Russia and the USA, our countries cosponsored a decision on the OSCE role in combating transnational threats and challenges. The Ministerial Council resolved on solidifying the legal framework against terrorism. The CSTO member states called for strengthening the contribution of the OSCE in the fight against illicit drug trafficking.

The Council agreed to continue the energy dialogue within the OSCE, which should take into account the interests of all participants in the energy supply chain.

Together with Serbia and the CSTO allies, Russia became the initiator of the adoption of a ministerial declaration on the 65th anniversary of the end of World War II, which became a useful contribution to the fight against attempts to falsify the history.

Important human dimension issues found reflection at the MC in Athens. Russia, in conjunction with several partners, proposed reviving in the OSCE agenda the dialogue on freedom of movement in order to ease and abolish visa regimes throughout the pan-European space. We also drew attention to the dangerous manifestations of neo-Nazism and xenophobia in a number of countries, national minority rights abuses and the lingering problem of mass statelessness in Latvia and Estonia.

Together with partners we called for further reform of the OSCE, including developing a Charter of the Organization and establishing order in its efforts to monitor elections in member states.

Russia supported the initiative of Kazakhstan, which takes over the OSCE chairmanship in 2010, for holding a summit of the Organization which will be able to positively influence the strengthening of the atmosphere of trust in the pan-European space.

During the Ministerial Council in Athens, Sergey Lavrov held a number of useful bilateral meetings with his foreign counterparts and the leadership of the OSCE.