OSCE in need of renewal – Lavrov

File Photo of OSCE Banners

MOSCOW. Jan 18 (Interfax) – The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe must get rid of imbalances and double standards by 2015, becoming a fully-fledged international organization with its own charter, said Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

“Russia sees the Helsinki + 40 initiative as an important step that aims to launch the process of the OSCE’s renewal and to define its strategic vision by the 40th anniversary to be marked in 2015,” Lavrov said in a commentary in the OSCE Magazine’s first issue this year, according to the Foreign Ministry’s posting on its Web site.

“We see this process primarily through the prism of the organization’s reform that aims to amend the imbalances and double standards that have unfortunately become its typical feature. The OSCE’s activities are almost three quarters concentrated on the humanitarian-legal dimension, while the whole of the field and project work is underway in the Balkans and in the post-Soviet space,” the Russian foreign minister said.

The Helsinki + 40 process will be a success if the OSCE becomes concentrated by 2015 on its priority goals, he said. “It must become a fully-fledged international organization with a legally binding charter and it must guarantee security through the observance of the principle of indivisible security by all its members,” the foreign minister said.

The OSCE must promote cooperation by removing curbs and barriers, and pay special attention to the situation in Europe, Lavrov said.

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