KAZAKHSTAN IS NOT GOING TO CHAIR THE OSCE IN 2009
Arkady Dubnov

Vremya Novostei, December 4, 2006, p. 2
Ferghana.ru, Russia
Dec 4 2006

Two-day session of the OSCE Council of Foreign Ministers opening in
Brussels today is supposed to decide what country to choose for the
chairman in 2009. Diplomatic sources claim, however, that the session
will come up with no decision – because of Kazakhstan, one of the
claimants for the privilege, that all but made it its national idea
in 2003.

The first CIS country in the OSCE to aspire for chairmanship in
the European structure that unites West and East Europe, the United
States, Canada, and post-Soviet Central Asia, Kazakhstan has both
supporters and enemies in the matter. Needless to say, the former
include Astana’s partners in the CIS and some West European countries
– Germany, France, Italy, and the Netherlands. Enemies of the idea
include the United States and Great Britain that do not think that
Kazakhstan is up to a number of democratic standards, particularly
in the sphere of human rights and readiness to arrange free and fair
elections. Since a consensus is clearly impossible, sources claim
that the decision will be postponed for until 2007.

The OSCE headquarters leans toward making Greece chairman in 2009,
Lithuania in 2010, and Kazakhstan – perhaps – in 2011. The last message
to this effect, not particularly clear, was sent to Kazakhstan during
the CIS summit in Minsk, Belarus, on November 28.

OSCE Chairman and Belgian Foreign Minister Karel de Guht visited the
capital of Belarus this day. Senior state officials of the Belarussian
state including President Alexander Lukashenko himself are personae
non grata in the European Union. Officially, De Guht came to Minsk
to attend a meeting between presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan
Robert Kocharjan and Ilham Aliyev. The dialogue between Yerevan and
Baku over Nagorno-Karabakh has been under way for years, under the
aegis of the OSCE Minsk Group whose chairmen from Russia, France,
and the United States were also in Minsk that day.

Conversation at de Guht’s meeting with Belarussian Foreign Minister
Sergei Martynov was centered around the agenda of the session opening
in Brussels today. Sources in Vienna claim in the meantime that de
Guht also met with representatives of the Kazakh authorities. First,
de Guht told Astana that President Nursultan Nazarbayev needn’t bother
addressing the Brussels session in person to try and persuade opponents
that Kazakhstan deserved the honor of chairing the OSCE.

Second, he said that Kazakhstan could aspire for the privilege two
years later.

It seems in the meantime that official Astana itself has decided
to call it off. Well-informed and trustworthy sources there say
that Nazarbayev himself was extremely critical of the idea of OSCE
chairmanship at a closed conference the other day. It figures, if
Astana doesn’t want to lose face.