Armenian Foreign Minister Ara Ayvazyan today addressed the OSCE Forum for Security Co-operation on Armenia’s assuming the chairmanship of the Forum. The following text of his remarks was released by the Armenian Foreign Ministry.

Today I am delighted to launch the Armenian Chairmanship of the OSCE Forum for Security Co-operation.

Let me start by thanking Germany as it leaves the FSC Troika, congratulating former FSC Chair U.S. for successful leadership of the Forum in the last trimester and welcome Austria as the new member of the Troika.

Armenia is taking over the Chairmanship of the Forum for the second time after 17 years. Back then FSC’s preventive measures aimed at reducing the risk of armed conflicts and the threat of such conflicts set the tone of our Chairmanship’s agenda.

Today, Armenia assumes the Chairmanship of the Forum when the security, peace, and stability in the OSCE area is being challenged like never before due to several factors.

Firstly, the security map of Europe had always covered wider geography than Europe itself and this logic is embedded in the OSCE extending from Vancouver to Vladivostok. After 46 years of establishing geography of the European security, we have to acknowledge that its current map does not entirely reflect the realities. New threats to the European security emerged particularly from the South - Mediterranean and Middle East regions. These threats especially the phenomenon of the foreign terrorist fighters have been on the radar of our Organization since 2014. However, too little was done to create effective capacities to counter these security risks. As a result, in 2020 we had the first case of massive use of foreign terrorist fighters from Syria and Libya in the OSCE area amid complete inaction of our Organization.

Inability to sustain indivisibility of the European security has been reflected in its mapping as well. The OSCE area seems to be fragmented into the core and periphery of the European security. This phenomenon is well observed in the disproportional attention towards different conflict and crisis situations in the OSCE area.

Secondly, OSCE mechanisms designed to strengthen security have been questioned due to the growing disagreements on essential arms control regimes and CSBMs. And here I am primarily referring to those who formally remain in those regimes and undermine their credibility by systematically, intentionally and massively violating them for many years. As a result, the integrity of the arms control regime had been seriously damaged which allowed certain participating States to create capacities for war.

Thirdly, the global decline and erosion of multilateralism, which did not bypass the OSCE, is reflected here by clear shortcomings to utilize early warning and conflict prevention toolbox.

Finally, the very idea of the Security and Co-operation in Europe whether within Conference or Organization has been inadmissibility of war and use of force.

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