Rupel Chairs EU Troika-OSCE Meeting
Kosovo, the South Caucasus, the Transnistrian region and Afghanistan dominated the agenda of the EU troika meeting with the OSCE in Luxembourg on Monday, with the chair of the meeting, Slovenian Foreign Minister Dimitrij Rupel, stressing the supportive role of the EU and the OSCE in these areas.
Rupel said that both the EU and the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) endeavoured to ensure peace and stability in all these areas, and that cooperation between the organisations was of utmost importance.
On Kosovo, Minister Rupel emphasised the significance of international coordination, in particular during the transition period. He said that the OSCE mission should continue to work and cooperate with the EULEX mission.
Rupel furthermore drew attention to the role played by the OSCE mission in Kosovo, especially to the interests of the Serbian community. A special EU representative should also be deployed to Kosovo, he said.
As regards the situation in the South Caucasus countries, the Slovenian foreign minister pointed to the elections that are to be held in the region later this year. The EU is greatly interested in free and fair elections and supports the work of international missions conducting election supervision, he said.
Moving on to conflicts in the South Caucasus, Rupel confirmed that the EU supported OSCE endeavours within the Minsk Group aimed at a peaceful, sustainable and fair resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh issue. He also expressed hopes that a meeting between the foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan would be held soon.
Touching on Transnistria, Rupel informed his counterparts about the topics discussed during the recent visit of Moldova's Deputy Prime Minister Andrei Stratan to Ljubljana. He also expressed his satisfaction over the recent meeting between Moldova's President Vladimir Voronin and the Transnistrian leader Igor Smirnov.
The discussion about Afghanistan also included issues of the central Asian region. In this context, Rupel emphasised the leading role of the EU in the transition of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, also in relation to programmes concerning border security.
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