TREND NEWS

18 February 2010

The two-day winter meeting of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly kicked off in the Austrian capital Vienna with many important issues on the Agenda. Two days parliamentarians from the OSCE participating states will try to tackle various issues from the ways of dealing with the frozen conflicts to addressing hate crimes.

The frozen conflicts, however, will probably remain in the main focus of the OSCE work in 2010, under Kazakh chairmanship. Kazakhstan is the first former Soviet republic to chair OSCE and the Parliamentary Assembly of the organizations has high expectations from Almaty.

OSCE Parliamentary Assembly President Joao Soares said, Kazakhstan has played a very important role for the demilitarization and denuclearization of the former soviet countries, and can also do a lot in future, especially when it comes to the frozen conflicts.

"We want the areas where we are committed should not have to be committed again in the future and we avoid such crises and conflicts in future. Thus the role we are about to play is very important. It is good to see there is the willingness to lead the conflicts to a resolution," Soares said in his opening speech to the Parliamentary Assembly.

Joao Soares together with OSCE PA co-rapporteur on Nagorno-Karabakh Goran Lennmarker is expected to visit the South Caucasus region - Azerbaijan and Armenia.

A date for the trip has not been set yet, OSCE PA Spokesman Klas Bergman told Trend News. However, Bergman stressed, that this is Soares's first visit to the region as OSCE PA President and - of course - he wants to bring Goran Lennmarker with him as a special representative and special envoy to situation in Nagorno-Karabakh and Georgia.

"It is an official visit with a lot of discussions and a lot of listening involved on what we can do to move peace process forward," Bergman said.

"OSCE have been working hard for many years now, Lennmarker very much involved in the region, we are working hard on moving the process forward in Nagorno-Karabakh and we will keep on working," he said.

"We do not have a date set for success, we don't think the conflict will be over in such and such time but we will continue to press forward so that the frozen conflicts become unfrozen," he added.

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. Armenian armed forces have occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan since 1992, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and 7 surrounding districts. Azerbaijan and Armenia signed a ceasefire agreement in 1994. The co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group - Russia, France, and the U.S. - are currently holding the peace negotiations.

Kazakh Foreign Minister Kanat Saudabayev, in turn, said his country intents to make significant contribution to the settlement of the frozen conflicts.

"We need to find a speedy settlement to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, based on the Madrid principles. The conflict must be tackled in a peaceful way and we must use all means to enhance trust in the region," Saudabayev told the OSCE parliamentarians. He stressed decent standard of living for the ordinary people in the region was a must and this would be one of the things Kazakhstan will concentrate on in the coming months.

Saudabayev also spoke of a need of continuing democratizations of the countries concerned, stressing the importance of sending OSCE observers to the Georgia Parliamentary Elections later this year.

"It might be a slow process but it must be a process that consistently moves in the right direction," he added.