OSCE summit in Astana gets green light

Evidently, taking all of this into account soon after ascending to the chairmanship, Kazakhstan decided to go further and call for an OSCE summit in Astana this summer. Such a forum has not been held since the İstanbul Summit in 1999. The last decade was the most unsuccessful in the history of the OSCE: It was unfortunate that no joint communiqués following meetings of ministers of foreign affairs, let alone holding summits, could be produced.

In fact, 2010 is a remarkable year for the organization because it celebrates the 35th anniversary of the signing of the Helsinki Final Act. This is also the 65th anniversary of the end of World War II, the 20th anniversary of the Paris charter (the Charter of Paris for a New Europe) and the 20th anniversary of the Copenhagen document (the Document of the Copenhagen Meeting of the Conference on the Human Dimension). All of these serve as a good opportunity to seriously review the OSCE’s role today.

The idea of the summit was originally initiated by the president of the Republic of Kazakhstan in 2008 during his meeting with the diplomatic corps. This idea was again announced by Kazakh Secretary of State-Minister of Foreign Affairs Kanat Saudabayev in December in Athens during the 17th session of the OSCE Council of Ministers of Foreign Affairs (CMFA).

A CMFA official did not oppose the idea of holding a summit in Astana in principle, but did not express support either. The situation was not clear even after the OSCE Permanent Council gathered in Vienna on Jan. 14, 2010 and where OSCE Chairman Saudabayev mentioned this idea.

One should recall that in November 2008 during an EU-Russia summit in Nice, the parties agreed to hold an OSCE summit in 2009, almost 10 years after the last one. In fact, Russia and France were among the most active countries to voice the need for OSCE reform, considering how the organization’s mission did not cover new challenges.

The idea of holding the summit is currently supported by several member states, among them France, Belgium, Russia, Turkey, Cyprus, Slovenia and Azerbaijan. In fact, both the OSCE secretary-general and Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Maratinos voiced their support. Spain hopes that the new summit will “give a new impulse to this organization, which needs new ideas at the beginning of the 21st century.” At the same time, in mid-February and on the first day of his stay in Russia, Nursultan Nazarbayev managed to solve one of the main tasks: to enlist the support of Moscow on the issue of a full-fledged OSCE summit in Astana.

At the same time, a number of international NGOs, including the Open Society Institute, Freedom House, Amnesty International USA, Human Rights Watch and others expressed their concern about the damage that could be dealt to the OSCE’s reputation in the “human dimension” field if the summit is held in the present state of human rights in Kazakhstan. They prepared a “Food for Thought” paper in February. The prerequisites for a successful OSCE summit will be sent to the official missions of all member states in Vienna. The authors encourage OSCE participants to adopt a decision to hold the OSCE summit in 2010 only after Kazakhstan takes concrete measures on the decriminalization of libel and the establishment of reasonable fines, which exclude the threat of bankruptcy of media structures, the release of Yevgeny Zhovtis, a human rights activist and the editor of the Alma-Ata Info newspaper. This being the case, the prospects for Kazakhstan are bleak. It will either have to pass the baton of holding the OSCE summit on to the future chairman or hold this event without full representation by the main countries, members of the OSCE.

Many analysts believe the main potential opponent of this idea is Uzbekistan. During the last meeting of the OSCE Ministerial Council, Uzbek Foreign Minister Vladimir Norov said, “Before raising the question of an OSCE summit in 2010, it is necessary to find a compromise within the organization on the important issues of regional and international policy.” Taking into account the uneasy relations between Tashkent and Astana, one should expect that the first may ignore the summit. However, Nazarbayev’s recent successful visit to Tashkent and Uzbek President Islam Karimov’s benevolent acceptance to pay an official visit to Kazakhstan suggest that this problem has almost been solved.

Indeed, Astana is worried about “neutral” countries, whose position is unclear. The US is among them and a number of other states await its decision. There is a perception that the United States will in any case support Astana, considering the wealth of oil reserves in this Central Asian regional power and long-established business projects, especially in the oil and gas industry. The US delay in issuing a response only serves to allow the US to save face in debates with human rights organizations. According to others, we must wait for the upcoming April visit of the Kazakh president to the US to attend the Global Nuclear Security Summit and his expected meeting with his US counterpart, President Barack Obama. Washington’s final decision on the OSCE summit largely depended on what “wishes” the US would have for Astana this time and how this Central Asian country would fulfill them.

In this connection, one of the great successes and even a breakthrough of Kazakh diplomacy has become an official meeting ahead of the nuclear security summit between President Nazarbayev and Obama, where parties had agreed to strengthen the strategic partnership between Kazakhstan and the US. It was at this very moment that the final point on the issue of the possibility of convening the OSCE summit in Astana was raised. “The US and Kazakhstan agreed to work on developing a substantive agenda for an OSCE summit,” read a statement issued by the presidential press service of Kazakhstan. Well, Kazakhstan now remains to prove that this summit will be historic for the future role of the organization in solving global problems of regional and international security.