POLITICS
OSCE Chairperson discuss draft document of Astana summit
Baku, November 16 (AZERTAC). The OSCE Chairperson-in-Office, Kazakhstan's Foreign Minister and Secretary of State, Kanat Saudabayev, urged the participating States today to work constructively on a balanced document to be agreed on by consensus at the 1-2 December OSCE Summit in Astana
Addressing the OSCE Permanent Council, Saudabayev stressed the importance of the OSCE summit in Astana as the first top-level meeting of the Organization in the past 11 years: "The active participation of all Heads of State or Government through their presence at the Summit would demonstrate their commitment to the OSCE, its principles and the future."
He highlighted the importance of agreement on a final document in Astana.
"First and foremost, we must reaffirm our determination to implement unconditionally and in a sprit of goodwill all the OSCE norms, principles and commitments in all three dimensions of our work," he said. "We also need to clearly identify threats and challenges in the OSCE's area of responsibility, devise an effective plan of action for overcoming them and outline a strategic vision for the development of a Euro-Atlantic and Eurasian community of common and indivisible security and a way of improving the Organization itself."
The final declaration of the Astana Summit and an Action Plan should provide clear impetus to efforts to revive and strengthen the regime of arms control and confidence-building measures, notably through the modernization of the Vienna Document 1999 ensuring military transparency within the OSCE
The OSCE Permanent Council is one of the main regular decision-making bodies of the OSCE convening weekly in Vienna to discuss developments in the OSCE area and to make appropriate decisions