AZG Armenian Daily #052, 23/03/2006
Conference
GLOBAL SECURITY AND COUNTER-TERRORISM DISCUSSED IN BRUSSELS
Armen Sarkissian speaks at Worldwide Security Conference
BRUSSELS — More than 400 civic leaders, policymakers, experts and
delegates from around the world gathered in Brussels during the last
week of February for the annual Worldwide Security Conference,
organized by the East West Institute in partnership with the Russian
Foreign Ministry and the World Customs Organization.
Speakers and panels focused on a host of critical issues facing the
world today – from global responses to international terrorism, to
security infrastructures, the role of technology in security and
protection mechanisms, to prevention, civil protection, and energy
security.
Conference speakers included the President of European Commission Jose
Manuel Barroso, former Prime Minster of Canada Kim Campbell, Secretary
General of World Customs Organization Michel Danet, Head of
Anti-Terroist Centre of CIS Boris Mylnikov, Russian President’s
Special Representative Anatoly Safonov, Chinese Foreign Ministry
Director General for Security Gao Jian, Russian Camber of Commerce and
Industry President Evgeny Primakov, US Ambassador to the European
Union C. Boyden Gray, and many other leading figures in government and
world security issues.
Armen Sarkissian, former Prime Minister of Armenia and currently
advisor to global energy and telecom corporations, spoke at the
three-day conference and chaired a panel on energy security. The panel
discussed several key issues, including ways of balancing supply and
demand on the one hand and protection and security of infrastructure
on the other; the role of China and India and the various scenarios of
cooperation with these vast energy consuming countries.
In his address, Sarkissian emphasized the urgency of devising common
security goals by the international community and the significance of
a strategy of energy diversification in coming years.
“The era of easy oil has indeed ended”, said Sarkissian. He explained
that economic developments in India and China have led to an increased
demand for oil and contributed to the upward trend of prices. Whereas
in 1990 China accounted for only 3.5 percent of the worlds crude oil
demand, in 2004 it had increased to 9 percent. Sarkissian underlined
that in the last five years, the oil demand of the two most populous
countries in the world has grown at 8.8 percent in China and 4.5
percent in India. He contrasted these rates with growth in the world
in the same period which stood at 1.6 percent.
One obvious trend in the world is that certain oil producing countries
in the past are becoming consumers themselves. China, which has become
a net oil importer since 1993, is currently the second largest
consumer of oil, after the US. “Diversification and the search for new
sources of energy are increasingly crucial for energy security” stated
Sarkissian, adding that “the search and struggle for energy resources
will have significant influence on global security issues in the
coming decades”.