Ukraine Aims to Become Efficient OSCE Chairman - Ukraine Foreign Minister

KYIV, Ukraine, December 27, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --

The newly appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Leonid Kozhara reassured he was prepared to furnish efficient chairmanship of his country in the OSCE. In his conversation with the OSCE Secretary General Lamberto Zannier, Kozhara confirmed Ukraine's 2013 OSCE chairmanship agenda, which was announced earlier this year.

Ukraine will take over the one-year OSCE chairmanship in January 2013. The decision was approved by the Ministerial Council of the OSCE participating states. The function of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office will be exercised by the foreign minister of the chairing country.

As OSCE 2013 chair Ukraine aims to address both the long-standing and new challenges the OSCE member states face. They include early conflict prevention, solving longtime conflicts, post conflict restoration, overall regional safety and stability. Additionally, the country will pay attention to energy safety issues, strengthening of the democratic institutions and reviving the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe. The latter is considered the backbone of stability in the region since it puts the limits on the amount of weaponry allowed in Europe. These issues have been identified as Ukraine's goals by the President of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych in his speech at the 67^th UN General Assembly in New York in September 2012.

Earlier this year, former Foreign Minister and now Vice Prime Minister Kostyantyn Gryshchenko stressed the following: "Ukraine sees merit in initiating a new dialogue within the OSCE aimed at elaborating fundamental principles of future conventional arms control applicable to all OSCE participating States." The minister also reiterated Ukraine's commitment to facilitate negotiations and settlement of the Transnistrian conflict. Transnistria is a Moldovan breakaway territory on the south-western border of Ukraine.

Ukraine also intends to become instrumental in the Geneva International Discussions over South Caucasus. The region is sore with three frozen conflicts - in Abkhazia, Nagorno-Karabakh, and South Ossetia.

Being the world's largest regional security organization, OSCE includes 57 member states in Europe, Central Asia and North America. Conflict prevention, crisis management and post-conflict restorative works are the main political goals of the organization.