With the New Year, Slovenia took over the presidency of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. This is the greatest challenge for Slovene foreign policy after gaining independence since our leadership of the UN Security Council.
Dr Dimitrij Rupel, what will be your priority tasks this year and what will be the main orientations of the OSCE?
RUPEL: Of course the OSCE is a major challenge for Slovenia, however Slovenia will not play the main role in this organization and in this year. We will be mediators; we will attempt to inform those who have problems about the opportunities afforded by the OSCE.
How will you make the organization more efficient?
RUPEL: One of our priority tasks is to encourage honest government, honest authority, honest management, the fight against trafficking in human beings, border control, the fight against terrorism. There are three main dimensions: the human, that is political, the economic and the security or military dimension. The countries have different views of these dimensions, and my role will be to listen to everyone who has different views and if possible to bring them closer together.
What in your opinion is the role of the organization today, after the fall of the Iron Curtain?
RUPEL: We can see that various processes are still continuing, that what happened to us around fifteen years ago is happening now in Ukraine and will perhaps happen in other places. We have a whole series of smouldering latent conflicts, from Moldova to Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia and so on, in central Asia. The issues of south-eastern Europe and flashpoints like Kosovo are especially important for us. I believe that this is where we will have the most credibility, if I may say so, and perhaps contribute to finding solutions.
More articles from this issue:
Archive
|