UN NEWS CENTRE

5 March 2005

UN and regional bodies can aid each other in curbing conflict, says OSCE
chief

Chairman-in-Office of OSCE, Dimitrij Rupel
4 March 2005 – The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe
(OSCE) told the United Nations Security Council today that both
organizations could complement each other in the search for stability and
peace in many of the world’s crisis flash points.

“It is difficult for inter-state organizations to deal with non-state
actors, even if – as in some cases – they are de facto authorities,” OSCE
Chairman-in-Office, Slovenian Foreign Minister Dimitrij Rupel said in an
open briefing, in which he mentioned separatist conflicts in Kosovo,
Georgia, Moldova, Armenia and Azerbaijan.

“There are times when the leverage of powerful states – including Permanent
Members of this Council – can be crucial. I urge you to exert that pressure
in the context of OSCE mediation efforts to help resolve these long-standing
conflicts,” he added.

Conversely, Mr. Rupel noted the report of the High-level Panel on Threats,
Challenges and Change in drawing up a strategy suitable for the 21st
century.

“Through the implementation of this strategy, I believe that the OSCE can
take on some of the UN’s burden in the OSCE area. As the UN Panel noted, the
Security Council’s ability to more proactively prevent and respond to
threats could be strengthened by making fuller and more productive use of
regional organizations. The OSCE is well positioned and well-equipped to do
so,” he declared.

There are areas, such as preventing ethnic conflict and regulating the
marking and tracing, as well as the brokering and transfer of small arms and
light weapons, where the OSCE is even more progressive than the UN, he said.

The OSCE, for example, has considerable expertise in national minority
issues, policing and building the effective public institutions that were so
essential for Kosovo’s peaceful and sustainable development. In many tense
situations, effective policing is needed rather than UN blue helmets
military units, he said.

In Moldova, Georgia and in the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, the
OSCE is actively trying to resolve conflicts that are sometimes referred to
as frozen but which lately have started to thaw, he added. The slow but
steady progress in the dialogue between Armenia and Azerbaijan on
Nagorno-Karabakh is encouraging, and it is to be hoped that recent changes
in Ukraine and a new post-election environment in Moldova will enable a new
attempt to resolve the Transdniestrian conflict.

The OSCE is also working with parties to reduce tensions in South Ossetia,
Georgia, and to promote demilitarization, build confidence and achieve a
lasting settlement there.

Regarding the clash between the concept of “responsibility to protect” and
the principle of non-intervention in the internal affairs of a state, Mr.
Rupel stressed that the OSCE was very clear and progressive when it came to
human rights. Commitments undertaken in the organization’s human rights
dimension are of direct and legitimate concern to all participating states
and do not belong exclusively to the internal affairs of the state
concerned, he said.

That legitimate intrusiveness is the basis on which participating states
hold each other accountable for the implementation of their commonly agreed
commitments, he added. He also stressed that the battle against terrorism
must not violate human rights.