THE CHAIRMANSHIP IN ACTION (Article in “East West Forum” Magazine)
05-05-2010
By Ambassador Kairat Abdrakhmanov, Chairperson of the OSCE Permanent Council, Permanent Representative of Kazakhstan to the OSCE
The first months of Kazakhstan’s Chairmanship of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe are already over. As the first post-Soviet country to head this unique pan-European organization, Kazakhstan has taken great pains to ensure a successful start for its extremely responsible mission.
Since the very outset our Chairmanship has been trying to follow the motto of the four Ts – Trust, Tradition, Transparency and Tolerance. As President Nursultan Nazarbayev explained in his video address to the members of the OSCE Permanent Council, the first T stands for our trust in one another, something that we very much need. The second one refers to our commitment to the fundamental principles and values of the OSCE. The third one conveys maximum openness and transparency in international relations, free of “double standards” and “dividing lines”, and a focus on constructive co-operation in order to address threats and challenges to security. The fourth one reflects the global trends towards a strengthening of dialogue between cultures and civilizations, which is gaining ever greater importance in today’s world.
The Chairmanship’s programme includes work to counter new threats and challenges, the search for solutions to protracted conflicts, the rehabilitation of Afghanistan, co-operation with respect to transport, the development of tolerance and other important areas of work, including democracy.
On the eve of our Chairmanship we initiated the idea of an OSCE summit. A meeting at the highest level would impart a powerful impulse to the efforts to adapt the OSCE to the threats and challenges of the modern age and would increase confidence in and respect for the Organization.
We firmly believe that the OSCE, which brings together 56 countries in the area from Vancouver to Vladivostok, must address the most difficult and pressing problems in today’s world. The task of the international community is not only to revive the spirit of the Helsinki Process but also to impart fresh vigour to it. It is symbolic that this year we are celebrating the 35th anniversary of the Helsinki Final Act and the 20th anniversary of the Charter of Paris. As part of our summit preparations we plan to hold an informal meeting of foreign ministers in Almaty on 16 and 17 July of this year.
There was an extremely packed agenda consisting of various events at start of our Chairmanship. During the first three months, the Chairperson-in-Office, Secretary of State and Minister for Foreign Affairs of Kazakhstan, Kanat Saudabayev, held a series of very important talks in Vienna, Brussels, London, Washington, New York, Geneva, Tbilisi, Baku, Yerevan, Moscow, Minsk, Kiev and Chisinau. He also received the heads of the foreign ministries of Russia, Turkey and Bosnia and Herzegovina in Astana.
Our work at the OSCE headquarters in Vienna is strictly in keeping with a timetable of events which are scheduled literally hour by hour. One of the unique distinguishing features of the Kazakh Chairmanship is that we have involved all the participating States in our consultations. This is of great help in ensuring progress in our priority areas. The voice of each participating State is important and needs to be taken into account in an organization where the consensus principle governs the adoption of decisions.
Alongside the Chairmanship’s day-to-day work, we have begun to take measures to promote the European security dialogue or what is known as the Corfu Process.
The start of our Chairmanship was preceded by the timely adoption of the OSCE Unified Budget for 2010. This is a particular success for the OSCE participating States because the budget had not been adopted on time since 2006.
An important achievement in the first term of the Chairmanship has been the appointment of Dunja Mijatović as the new OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media. She assumed the post on 11 March.
For the first time, a woman is heading an OSCE institution. This confirms a positive trend in the representation of women in higher management positions at the OSCE.
Of course, it is still too early to take stock of our work because the bulk of the job still lies ahead of us. But even today we are deeply grateful to all the participating States for their support and for their contribution to the development of a constructive dialogue on the pressing problems in the OSCE area.
On the whole, Kazakhstan is endeavouring to focus its attention on achieving an optimum balance between the OSCE’s three dimensions – politico-military, economic and environmental, and human. We firmly believe that this kind of approach will enable us to see the problems in their entirety and to effectively counter not only the external manifestations of present-day threats and challenges but also to tackle their sources of origin.
