The Minister for Europe and the Americas (Sir Alan Duncan)
I represented the United Kingdom at the 23rd Ministerial Council meeting of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), held in Hamburg, Germany on 8-9 December 2016 and hosted by German Foreign Minister and OSCE Chairman-in-Office Frank-Walter Steinmeier. The Council is the top decision-making body of the OSCE and was attended by Ministers from across its 57 participating states.
The Council took place in the final month of a year when the OSCE has continued to be at the centre of the international response to the Ukraine crisis, via its special monitoring mission, its observer mission to two Russian checkpoints on the Ukrainian-Russian border and through its membership of the trilateral contact group. Ukraine remained the core element of many statements in plenary by participating states including by US Secretary of State Kerry, German Foreign Minister Steinmeier, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Klimkin and EU High Representative Mogherini among others. In my interventions in the discussions that took place on 8 December I repeated our strong support for Ukrainian sovereignty and territorial integrity and expressed deep concern at the ongoing situation in eastern Ukraine and Crimea.
A number of other important issues were also discussed. The UK used the event to highlight the need to resolve other protracted conflicts and to minimise the risk of new conflict, including by reducing military risk through conventional arms control. I joined Georgian Foreign Minister Janelidze and other ‘Friends of Georgia’, including US Secretary of State, John Kerry in expressing our support to Georgia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity and calling on Russia to reverse its recognition of Georgia’s regions as independent states. I also underlined the UK’s ongoing support for the OSCE’s autonomous institutions and its field missions including in my bilateral discussions with Michael Link, Director of the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) and Dunja Mijatovic, the representative on freedom of the media.
Behind the scenes, the UK delegation continued to negotiate a range of declarations and decisions for adoption by the Ministerial Council. These negotiations made progress in a number of areas, resulting in a declaration welcoming the broad range of the OSCE’s project assistance in the field of small arms and light weapons and stockpiles of conventional ammunition. A declaration on the OSCE framework for conventional arms control was also agreed, signalling approval for a structured dialogue between participating states on the current and future challenges and risks to security in the OSCE area. Declarations and decisions were also made on migration, on reducing the risks of conflict stemming from the use of information and communication technologies, on enhancing the use of advance passenger information, and on strengthening good governance and promoting economic connectivity.
Divergent approaches limited the scope to reach consensus on a number of proposed declarations. It was particularly disappointing that disagreement from certain participating states to the inclusion of a reference to Crimea meant that a declaration on the OSCE’s role in, and support to, Ukraine could not be agreed, despite 56 of the 57 participating states agreeing the text. It was also disappointing that, despite the best efforts of the UK and other states, attempts to agree decisions in the human dimension failed, primarily due to further Russian obstructionism. However, the UK was instrumental in securing the agreement of 42 participating states to a joint statement on human rights which was delivered by the Ambassador to Norway to the OSCE during the closing session.
I met Irish Foreign Minister Dara Murphy and Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavusoglu on non-OSCE business.
A copy of the UK plenary intervention can be found online on the gov.uk website:
https://www.gov.uk/government/world-location-news/united-kingdom-statement-to-the-23rd-osce-ministerial-council
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