VZCZCXRO7042
PP RUEHAST RUEHDBU RUEHFL RUEHLA RUEHMRE RUEHPOD RUEHROV RUEHSK RUEHSL
RUEHSR
DE RUEHVEN #0147/01 1741629
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P 231629Z JUN 09
FM USMISSION USOSCE
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 6442
INFO RUCNOSC/ORG FOR SECURITY CO OP IN EUR COLLECTIVE
RHEHNSC/NSC WASHDC
RUCNDT/USMISSION USUN NEW YORK 0780
RUEHUNV/USMISSION UNVIE VIENNA 1337
RHMFISS/CDR USEUCOM VAIHINGEN GE
RHMFISS/CDRUSAREUR HEIDELBERG GE
RUEAIIA/CIA WASHDC
RHDLCNE/CINCUSNAVEUR LONDON UK
RUEKJCS/DIA WASHDC
RUEASWA/DTRA ALEX WASHINGTON DC
RUESDT/DTRA-OSES DARMSTADT GE
RHMFIUU/HQ USCENTCOM MACDILL AFB FL
RUEKJCS/JCS WASHDC
RUEKJCS/JOINT STAFF WASHDC
RUEKJCS/SECDEF WASHDC
RUEHGV/USMISSION GENEVA 1275

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 05 USOSCE 000147 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR VCI/CCA, VCI/NRRC, EUR/RPM, EUR/PRA, EUR/CARC, 
SCA/CEN, SCA/RA, PM/WRA, ISN/CPI 
JCS FOR J-5 
OSD FOR ISA (PERENYI) 
NSC FOR HAYES 
USUN FOR LEGAL, POL 
EUCOM FOR J-5 
CENTCOM FOR J-5 
UNVIE FOR AC 
GENEVA FOR CD 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PARM PREL KCFE OSCE RS XG
SUBJECT: OSCE: LAVROV AT ASRC ADDS LITTLE ON NEW SECURITY 
ARCHITECTURE 
 
¶1. (SBU) Summary: Addressing the opening session of the OSCE 
Annual Security Review Conference (ASRC) June 23, Russian FM 
Lavrov ploughed familiar ground in terms of the rationale and 
outline of the Russian proposals to strengthen European 
security architecture.  He attributed much of the 
deterioration of Europe's security over the past decade to 
NATO enlargement, which has splintered any chance for a 
common commitment to indivisible security across all of the 
OSCE area.  He argued there were three factors contributing 
to impaired security: lack of trust between governments, 
risks of internal ruptures, and the inability of the 
international community to respond.  Lavrov urged 
participating States to recommit to non-interference in 
internal affairs of other countries, renounce the use of 
force to settle conflicts, adhere to international mechanisms 
for regulating conflict and provide support for international 
organizations dedicated to preventing conflict.  He said a 
new security architecture would have four major building 
blocks: interstate relations, arms control, conflict 
management, and new threats. 
 
¶2. (SBU) In response, many delegations raised the protracted 
conflicts, citing the Georgia case in particular and urging 
Russian agreement to re-establish an OSCE and UN presence in 
the disputed territories and respect the territorial 
integrity and sovereignty of Georgia within its 
internationally recognized borders.  The Georgians expressed 
concerns about the security situation within Russia, citing 
Chechnya, Dagestan and Ingushetia, and cited inconsistencies 
between Russia's professed respect for territorial integrity 
and last summer's war in South Ossetia.  In addition to the 
prepared statement, the U.S. also responded to Lavrov by 
defending NATO enlargement as a bottom-line contributor to 
enhanced European security and involving willing states on 
all sides.  In response, Lavrov defended Russia's actions 
leading to the war with Georgia and in trying to secure a 
"status-neutral" continuation of the international presence. 
End summary. 
 
Lavrov Opens ASRC 
----------------- 
 
¶3. (SBU) At the opening session of the OSCE Annual Security 
Review Conference on June 23, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey 
Lavrov noted that the first ASRC was held at the request of 
the U.S. in the months after 9/11 to address the threat of 
terrorism.  In 2009, the OSCE was again confronting threats 
and problems as profound as terrorism, including shortcomings 
in the architecture of Euro-Atlantic security.  Although the 
Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact had disappeared, Europe has 
yet to establish a common system of security.  Some states 
continue to pursue their own security at the expense of the 
security of others, he argued, in violation of the NATO 
Charter and even Kant's categorical imperative to treat 
others as one would want to be treated, a principle reflected 
in President Obama's recent speech in Cairo and Article IV of 
the French Declaration on the Rights of Man from 1789. 
 
¶4. (SBU) Although Russian president Medvedev had already 
proposed a new concept for European security, the devil would 
be in the details.  This proposal would be based on existing 
institutions: NATO would not be dismantled and the OSCE would 
become a full-fledged, UN Chapter 8 regional organization. 
 
USOSCE 00000147  002 OF 005 
 
 
It was too bad, then, that Russia's Western partners persist 
with plans for NATO expansion; quoting George Kennan, Lavrov 
termed enlargement "the Allies' greatest mistake in the last 
50 years."  This expansion was destabilizing and had led to 
the military gambles of some states on Russia's borders.  The 
choice was between a common, indivisible security or the mere 
illusion of security. 
 
¶5. (SBU) How could the common security be obtained?  How 
should Russia react to NATO expansion?  How can the needs of 
individual states be reconciled with the needs of the 
Euro-Atlantic area?  Lavrov argued that the OSCE reflects a 
political commitment; NATO a legal one.  A new security 
arrangement for the pan-Euopean area should be based on legal 
commitments by all Euro-Atlantic states. 
 
Threats to Address 
------------------ 
 
¶6. (SBU) A new security arrangement will need to respond to a 
range of threats:  traditional interstate tensions resulting 
from a lack of trust; internal threats within states 
resulting from religious and ethnic clashes; non-state 
problems that transcend national borders, including organized 
crime, drugs, and trafficking.  Within the OSCE's area at 
present these threats were addressed by several different 
sub-regional groups with overlapping agendas that lacked 
focus.  Yet the framework to address this range of threats, 
which had been developed at Istanbul in the 1999 Platform for 
Cooperative Security, has not been fully employed.  There has 
been no long-term response to the need for a commonly 
accepted security architecture.  Lavrov argued the CFE Treaty 
was an urgent priority when it led to the disarming of Russia 
and the countries of the Warsaw Pact, but the adapted treaty 
has now languished for ten years after Russia disarmed and 
Eastern Europe joined NATO.  Another instrument to address 
common security concerns, the Vienna Document, was now only 
half-functioning, and many of its still effective measures 
were not implemented in good faith. 
 
New Architecture's Building Blocks 
---------------------------------- 
 
¶7. (SBU) Lavrov explained the Medvedev proposal for a new 
European security architecture would contain four major 
building blocks: 
 
- basic principles of state relations, including sovereignty, 
territorial integrity, restraint from use of force, and right 
to choose allies while eschewing the formation of military 
alliances, rejection of single state guarantors of the 
international system; 
 
- arms control and confidence-building measures, including 
non-aggressive defenses and non-stationing of substantial 
combat forces on foreign territory 
 
- conflict management principles based on a common approach, 
including the peaceful settlement of disputes in accordance 
with the UN Charter, non-use of force, international 
mediation, protection of civilians, non-interference with 
peacekeeping forces, non-isolation of conflict zones 
 
 
USOSCE 00000147  003 OF 005 
 
 
- new threats, such as proliferation of WMD, organized crime, 
and trafficking 
 
¶8. (SBU) Russia had no ulterior motives in making these 
proposals.  There was no need to worry: a common approach 
would be developed through the same process of dialogue and 
consensus that worked for Europe and Russia even during the 
Cold War.  The discussions should take place in the 
NATO-Russian Council, EU-Russia consultations, and even 
bilaterally: Germany, France, and Finland had already made 
significant contributions to the dialogue.  As few were 
satisfied with the current situation, Russia expected all pS 
would work together, without undermining the current 
institutions, to get beyond the "era of alliances." 
 
¶9. (SBU) Lavrov proposed as a next step to convene a meeting 
of the heads of leading international organizations, 
including the OSCE, NATO, the EU, the CIS, and CSTO, on the 
basis of the Platform for Cooperative Security accepted by 
the OSCE.  The discussion should focus on a comparative 
review of the organizations' different security strategies 
and the creation of a reliable architecture to meet the 
demands of "hard" security, without which "soft" security 
will never be tenable.  The Medvedev proposal gives Europe 
another chance to "get it right."  Failure to engage with the 
proposal would lead to a reversion to national approaches to 
security with negative consequences for the OSCE area. 
Lavrov warned against linking engagement with a new treaty 
for hard security with resolution of certain soft security 
concerns: "it would not be wise," he concluded. 
 
Lavrov on Georgia 
----------------- 
 
¶10. (SBU) In response to interventions from Georgia and other 
delegations, Lavrov said Russia had circulated many documents 
at the OSCE explaining its position on Georgia; he urged 
delegations to read them for a full understanding of the 
Russian position.  They contained facts, not allegations. 
While Russia had always supported the principles of 
sovereignty and territorial integrity for the states of the 
South Caucasus, it was Georgia's President Saakashvili who 
launched the attack on South Ossetia after affirming as late 
as July 2008 that he would refrain from the use of force to 
resolve this territorial dispute and who told French 
President Sarkozy that the status of South Ossetia and 
Abkhazia should not be subject to an international 
discussion. 
 
¶11. (SBU) Lavrov argued Russia supported pragmatic approaches 
to the problems of the South Caucasus that would include 
consultations with the authorities of South Ossetia and 
Abkhazia.   Russia could again support an OSCE mission to the 
region, but it required consent from South Ossetia and 
Abkhazia and needed to recognize "realities on the ground." 
Lavrov said the UN still maintained a presence in the region, 
with representatives of UNICEF and the UNHCR in Abkhazia. 
Unlike some of Russia's partners, who were taking a 
non-pragmatic, ideological approach to issues in the South 
Caucasus and Kosovo, Russia preferred a common path to 
solving the problems of both these regions that emphasized 
fairness.  Lavrov noted that an international police presence 
in the South Caucasus was rejected by EU High Representative 
 
USOSCE 00000147  004 OF 005 
 
 
Solana, although Russia could still accept this. 
 
U.S. and Others Criticize Russia 
-------------------------------- 
 
¶12. (SBU) The keynote address by Lavrov on a new European 
Security Treaty was nearly overshadowed by participating 
States' general concern over the marked erosion of the 
security atmosphere since the last ASRC in 2008.  Beginning 
with the Greek CiO's introduction, interventions repeatedly 
identified the August 2008 conflict in Georgia as the cause 
of a significant degradation in confidence within the OSCE 
region.  Nearly all registered regret that pS could not reach 
consensus over the Greek CiO's compromise plan to extend the 
OSCE presence, including military monitors, in Georgia. 
Among others, the EU, Georgia, France, and the U.S. 
criticized Russia's recognition of Georgia's separatist 
regions.  In a similar vein, most interventions admonished 
Russia for blocking a technical extension of UNOMIG.  Nearly 
all agreed that the August crisis underscored the need for pS 
to reaffirm basic principles and improve the OSCE's conflict 
prevention and crisis response mechanisms.  The U.S. also 
defended NATO enlargement as contributing to the security of 
the Euro-Atlantic area and involving willing states on all 
sides. 
 
¶13. (SBU) Aside from the August crisis, pS also reiterated 
concerns over the state of conventional arms control, 
specifically the lack of movement on CFE.  Several noted that 
pS respect for existing commitments was a necessary precursor 
for successful discussions on future commitments and called 
on Russia to return to full implementation of its obligations 
under CFE.  Others mentioned additional measures, such as the 
recent high-level meeting of experts in Berlin, as welcome 
steps in attempting to break the impasse. 
 
¶14. (SBU) New and emerging threats also were raised in the 
opening session.  Georgia expressed concern over the security 
situation within Russia, citing Chechnya, Dagestan and 
Ingushetia as flash points that could impact security 
throughout the region.  Several pS listed narco-trafficking, 
terrorism, nonproliferation, cyber crime, energy and 
environmental security, and illegal immigration as among the 
emerging threats.   Kazakhstan and OSCE Asian Partner 
Mongolia noted the importance of stability in Afghanistan and 
proposed increased OSCE efforts to build security in the 
region. 
 
¶15. (SBU) Despite these concerns, pS welcomed Minister 
Lavrov's presence as a clear sign that Russia is serious 
about improving security in the region.  Several 
interventions noted the timeliness of a discussion of 
European security given the current state of affairs.  Many 
identified the OSCE as the most appropriate venue for future 
discussions on European security.  While Lavrov referred 
repeatedly to the Russian proposal on "hard security," many 
pS reinforced the view that any discussion should be 
multidimensional. 
 
Looking Forward to Corfu 
------------------------ 
 
¶16. (SBU) Finally, a number of pS welcomed the CiO Corfu 
 
USOSCE 00000147  005 OF 005 
 
 
initiative as a logical next step to the assessment that pS 
would attempt over the course of the review conference. 
Belarus characterized the informal Ministerial as a logical 
link between the ASRC and the next Ministerial in Athens and 
expressed hope that pS would come to Athens with specific 
proposals.  The CiO and Switzerland hoped that Corfu could 
result in a decision on how to proceed with dialogue. 
Scott