United States Mission to the OSCE

Statement for the Record

Delivered by John Schmidt, Director, Office of European Regional Political Military Affairs, Department of State, to the Reinforced Permanent Council, Vienna

June 27, 2003

Mr. Chairman, it is a real pleasure for me to be here to review OSCE activities at the mid-year mark and to look ahead to our December Ministerial meeting in Maastricht.

The United States continues to believe that the OSCE has a vital role to play in Euro-Atlantic security, particularly through its work in the field and through implementation of practical measures aimed at enhancing security, stability and the rule of law. Over the past year, the United States has advocated a series of measures aimed at broadening the work of the OSCE across all three dimensions -- human, economic and political-military -- to address the needs and threats faced by OSCE participating states.

The Annual Security Review Conference, which ended yesterday, was a key opportunity to assess progress and to focus on practical measures the OSCE can take to combat terrorism, ensure homeland security, reduce the risks from other trans-national threats, and improve the overall work of the OSCE in ensuring the security of its members. I hope that we can take action on the proposals raised at this meeting, especially on travel-document security, airport, seaport and border security, before the December Ministerial. The U.S. is committed to action, and to assisting OSCE institutions in helping others to act.

Similarly, the Anti-Semitism Conference brought together experts and government leaders from OSCE member states to address the alarming increase in this old and terrible scourge, one which cost the lives of over six million Europeans little more than half a century ago. The United States strongly supported this conference as a forum for sharing best practices in dealing with this emerging threat and we appreciate the high-level of participation of the OSCE's membership in this conference. We believe the pursuit of human rights, including protecting minority groups against persecution, must remain a central goal of the OSCE. For this reason we also look forward to taking part in the Conference on Racism, Xenophobia, and Discrimination this September.

Security

We have devoted significant time, energy and resources over the past year to deepening the OSCE's engagement on new security challenges in the region. The Anti-Terrorism Unit and the Strategic Police Matters Unit are engaged in practical measures in these fields and we recommend that increased resources be budgeted to these offices to allow them to hire sufficient staff and develop programs that can assist all OSCE states.

The 2001 Bucharest Ministerial tasked the Permanent Council with developing a strategy for the OSCE to combat threats to stability and security in the 21st Century. Last year, the U. S. and Russian delegations began the process by jointly circulating a "food for thought" paper on the subject. We want to praise the work of Ambassador Biering and the Informal Group to produce a final strategy document for Maastricht. As I noted in my remarks on this subject at the Annual Security Review Conference, the focus of this effort should be on producing specific, concrete, practical measures that will enhance the security of OSCE members states against the threats, both new and old, that confront us in this millenium. We stand ready to engage actively on this exercise once the draft of the document has been produced in order for us to reach agreement on the strategy paper before the December Ministerial.

Moldova and the South Caucasus

We remain hopeful that a political settlement in Moldova can be achieved this year, but acknowledge that much remains to be accomplished. We welcomed the news from the OSCE Mission in Moldova that the removal of arms and ammunition from Moldova by the Russian Federation, if continued, would complete the process by year's end. We are concerned by recent reports that these shipments are now being blocked. Withdrawal of Russian military forces from Moldova by the end of this year -- the goal set at Porto -- would fulfill Russia's Istanbul Commitment on Moldova and constitute a major step toward establishing the conditions that would make it possible for all CFE States parties to submit the Adapted CFE Treaty to their parliaments for ratification.

We hope that comparable progress can be achieved this year on Istanbul commitments relating to withdrawal of Russian forces from Georgia.

I have focused my remarks on Moldova, because real progress is evident this year on the military withdrawal side, and seems very possible on the political settlement side as well. However, the United States remains equally committed to bilateral, OSCE and other international efforts to find peaceful and comprehensive resolutions also to the regional conflicts in the southern Caucasus, including Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Nagorno-Karabakh. Any such political solutions must respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the participating States involved.

Central Asia

Recent events have dramatically illustrated how much security and stability in Central Asia is vital to security and stability throughout the OSCE space. The OSCE has correctly energized its engagement in Central Asia in a variety of ways, from increased activities to strengthen policing capacity, to targeted workshops aimed at making financial systems more resilient to abuse. This spring the OSCE welcomed Afghanistan as a Partner for Cooperation, an outreach effort that should lead to confidence and security building measures that will benefit us all.

We continue to work with our Central Asian partners on other areas of equal importance: democratization, small business development, transparency, independent media, and protection of and respect for human rights. Our efforts have contributed to important regional progress in these areas.

FSC Chairmanship

Let me also note that the United States is assuming the Chair of the Forum for Security Cooperation following the summer recess. We look forward to working closely with the CiO and the member states of OSCE -- and leading the FSC in its important political-military work -- in the run-up to Maastricht.

Economic Dimension and Trafficking

In an effort to strengthen the Economic Dimension, the United States has encouraged the OSCE to develop concrete programs. We have urged the Economic Coordinator's Office to focus on the economic aspects of human trafficking by organizing small- and medium-sized enterprise training targeted at high-risk groups (such as women and youth), noting that the availability of economic opportunities can prevent women from being trafficked. We also urged the OSCE to focus greater attention on development strategies that focus on job creation and small business development.

We have supported creating a thematic mission focused on combating human trafficking. Such a mission, devoted to a specific theme, could be applicable to all OSCE member states. A thematic mission could play an important role in monitoring and evaluating countries' compliance with standards set forth by the OSCE's human trafficking mandates.

Future of Missions

The various OSCE field missions and presences remain a critical component in our common efforts to monitor region-wide and local developments, coordinate with host governments and civil society, and provide crucial assistance in the implementation of programs. They are not a stigma; they are a resource that can help ensure that all OSCE member states are able to provide their citizens with good governance, mounting prosperity and enduring security against 21st century threats. We welcome the efforts of the Working Group on Missions to address how these field missions can be made more effective. In our view, missions should focus their efforts on institution and capacity building, while breaking down artificial barriers between the three dimensions. Effective counter-terrorism measures, for example, cannot be taken without effective modern institutions and respect for human rights and the rule of law. Strengthening national capabilities and developing professional institutions will require that OSCE field missions are active across all three OSCE dimensions.

Ministerial Streamlining

In the coming months, we look forward to discussing practical steps to improve the OSCE Ministerial meeting. Ideally, the OSCE Ministerial would be a meeting free of acrimonious negotiation of documents and, rather, where our most senior diplomats would have an opportunity to focus on the meeting itself. We believe the G-8 provides a useful model that we could readily apply to the OSCE. The U.S. would welcome the development of panel discussions at the Ministerial, in which the panelists discuss a thematic topic, such as trafficking, new threats to security, and regional issues. We believe that negotiations on regional papers should be concluded prior to the Ministerial.

Management Reform

We herald the decision to be taken today to adopt new staff regulations as a step forward for the organization and for the people who serve it with such devotion and ability. We look forward to adoption of similar measures, as soon as possible, that would create a Liquidity Fund, thereby enabling the OSCE's financial management to function smoothly and without excessive delays. Successful implementation of a common regulatory management framework on the basis of the Secretariat's program for Integrated Resource Management (IRMA), may well represent the single most significant contribution we can make to strengthening the OSCE's managerial practices. As such, it deserves our full support. As we stated at Porto, we see the overall reform process winding down by the end of this year so that we can focus our attention on making use of the instruments we will have put in place.

Conclusion

Mr. Chairman, we can ensure that the OSCE remains relevant to the region by implementing practical measures that address the real challenges we face in the region, whether they come from terrorists, transnational organized crime, or trafficking in persons. Our proposals for action demonstrate that the United States is committed to assisting the OSCE and member States in implementing these proposals and we look forward to working together to achieve a successful Ministerial meeting at the end of this year.