OSCE security conference to discuss cooperation prospects

VIENNA, July 1 (Itar-Tass) - Participants in the Annual Security
Review Conference of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in
Europe (OSCE) that will open in the Austrian capital on Tuesday will
discuss prospects for cooperation in countering new challenges and
threats. The forum's agenda includes discussions on trans-national
security challenges, confidence-building measures and the dialogue in this
sphere, the state of agreements on arms control, as well as on the early
warning and settlement of conflicts in the OSCE space.

The Annual Security Review Conference (ASRC) was established by the
OSCE Ministerial Council in Porto in 2002 to enhance the dialogue on
security among the 56 participating States and to review the Organization'
s security work.

This year's ASRC will take place at the Hofburg Congress Centre in
Vienna on 1 and 2 July 2008.

The aims of the ASRC are:
to provide a framework for enhancing security dialogue and for
reviewing security work undertaken by the OSCE and participating States;
to provide an opportunity to exchange views on issues related to arms
control and confidence and security building; and
to promote the exchange of information and co-operation with relevant
international and regional organizations and institutions.
The 2008 ASRC is the sixth to be held.
The Russian delegation headed by Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander
Grushko comprises representatives of the Foreign and Defence Ministries,
Federal Security Service (FSB) and Federal Drug Control Service.

Itar-Tass learnt that in their speeches the Russian delegation members
intend to place the emphasis on the necessity of renewal of the OSCE
agenda in accordance with new challenges and threats and building up
efforts in the fight against terrorism, drug trafficking and organised
crime. Besides, the delegation members will express Russia's concerns over
the military-political security aspects, including the situation regarding
the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) and deployment of
elements of the American missile defence system in Europe.

Over the past several years Russia has been consistently coming out in
favour of strengthening of the OSCE military-political dimension,
development of the regimes of control and confidence-building measures, as
well as for the intensification of the forum's work aimed at cooperation
in the OSCE security sphere.

According to a statement by Wolfgang Zellner, Head of the Centre for
OSCE Research (CORE), "In recent years, the OSCE has become increasingly
aware of a new security dimension: trans-national threats and challenges
arising from demographic imbalances, illegal migration, trafficking and
other forms of organized crime, and from trans-national terrorism and the
proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Although protracted
ethno-political conflicts smoulder on in some states, and the prevention
of new conflicts remains an ongoing task, trans-national threats have
become the most prominent security challenge for the Organization."

"Trans-national threats endanger people's lives and property, they
undermine the viability of states, particularly weak states, and they
threaten stability and security both in specific regions and in the OSCE
area as a whole. Today, trans-national threats are no less relevant than
the nuclear and conventional stand-off was in the Cold War period and
ethno-political conflicts were in the 1990s. Consequently, the OSCE has to
reinvent itself and adapt its working instruments to the nature of this
new challenge," it noted.

"Limited progress has so far been made in doing so and, all in all, it
has been less convincing than fifteen years ago, when the CSCE created
instruments to address ethno-political conflicts. While the Organization
has produced excellent policy documents, concrete tools for actually
tackling trans-national challenges have remained significantly
underdeveloped. Many of the Organization's activities are merely
declaratory or symbolic," according to the statement.

"Yes, we have the 2003 "OSCE Strategy to Address Threats to Security
and Stability in the Twenty-First Century." It clearly states that
"threats to security and stability in the OSCE region are today more
likely to arise as negative, destabilizing consequences of developments
that cut across the politico-military, economic and environmental and
human dimensions, than from any major armed conflict" and that they are
"trans-national in character." And we also have a number of good documents
dealing with specific trans-national challenges, including action plans on
anti-terrorism and anti-trafficking and the Border Security and Management
Concept," it is said in the statement.