OSCE ministerial meeting in Bucharest

The Foreign ministers of the 55 OSCE countries will be meeting today and tomorrow in Bucharest during the OSCE Ministerial Council reunion, a moment that will also mark the end of the Romanian OSCE chairmanship.

The participants will endorse three documents: a political statement, a statement regarding the fight against terrorism and a statement on solving situations in the conflict areas.

The reunion will also review the progress registered in voluntary confidence- and security-building measures included in the Dayton agreement to be enforced in January 2002.

The statement of action against terrorism will comprise stipulations regarding the need to take joint action and to co-ordinate the OSCE actions in the fight against terrorism with those actions fighting human or drug traffic.

US State Secretary Colin Powell, German Foreign Affairs minister Joschka Fischer, Russian Foreign Affairs Minister Igor Ivanov, the EU Commissioner for Foreign Affairs Chris Patten and the Foreign ministers of the other OSCE countries will attend the meeting in Bucharest.

Israeli Foreign minister Shimon Peres will attend the meeting and will have a bilateral meeting with the US State Secretary. The head of the US diplomacy will also meet President Ion Iliescu, Premier Adrian Nastase and Foreign Affairs minister Mircea Geoana.

The US State Secretary will hold bilateral meetings with the French and German Foreign Affairs ministers. The US State Secretary will leave Bucharest for Ankara, Moscow and Brussels, where he will attend the North-Atlantic Council Meeting and the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council on Thursday and Friday.

Colin Powell will arrive in Bucharest tomorrow and will deliver a speech in front of the Ministerial Council, leaving for Turkey in the evening.

OSCE Ministerial Council is the central negotiating and decision-making body of the Organisation, and is convened in the year when no OSCE Summit of Head of State or Government is being held.

The meetings of the OSCE Ministerial Council are annual and are organised and headed by the country holding chairmanship, at the end of the mandate.

The Bucharest meeting will be conducted in accordance with the relevant decisions of the Helsinki (1992), Budapest (1994), Lisbon (1996) and Istanbul (1999) Summit Meetings.

The meeting of the OSCE Ministerial Council will also mark the end of Romania’s chairmanship of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe, a mandate during which some important events took place.

The most significant success of the Romanian delegation was the re-opening of the Chechnya mission, headed by a Romanian diplomat, Alexandru “Sasa” Cornea, Ambassador in Kiev.

The OSCE comeback in Chechnya is of great importance especially because this was the main issue of disagreement between OSCE and Russia at the Ministerial meeting in November 2000.