Kazakhstan to continue strengthening OSCE Role, Kazykhanov says

    A Kazakhstani delegation led by Foreign Minister Yerzhan Kazykhanov has attended the 18^th session of the OSCE Ministerial Council in Vilnius, Lithuania, on December 6-7.
    The meeting reviewed progress achieved in 2011 and sought to identify further steps to strengthen the organization’s role in internationally.
    Following its successful OSCE chairmanship in 2010, Kazakhstan has continued its active effort in the Troika together with Lithuania, the current OSCE chairman, and Ireland -- which will chair the organization in 2012, the Kazakh MFA’s press release reports.
    Speaking at the session, Kazakhstan’s Foreign Minister Yerzhan Kazykhanov noted, “The year 2011 has been a really important one, something that was predetermined by our common achievement - the Astana OSCE Summit and its final document.
    In Astana, we committed ourselves to work together to fully realize the vision of a comprehensive, cooperative and indivisible security community in the Euro-Atlantic and Eurasian region, free of dividing lines, conflicts, spheres of influence and zones with varied levels of security”.
    In 2011, in line with the priorities identified in the Astana OSCE Summit final document, the Forum for Security Cooperation, currently chaired by Kazakhstan, engaged in intensive discussions to update, revitalize and modernize confidence and security‑building measures, which resulted in the adoption of a historical decision on November 30 to reissue the Vienna Document, a document that encompasses key OSCE confidence and security-building measures.
    “The first sign of progress, which we are proud to report on in our capacity as chair of the Forum for Security Cooperation, is that the 56 participating states have completed their work as tasked in the Astana Declaration and have succeeded in issuing a new revised version of the Vienna Document,” Yerzhan Kazykhanov said while speaking at the council.
    The Forum for Security Cooperation (FSC) is one of the OSCE’s two main regular decision-making bodies. The Forum was established at the 1992 Helsinki Summit to strengthen the Organization’s focus on politico-military security, according to Kazinform.