The OSCE Summit in Astana ended up as an embarrassment. The final declaration was made 10 hours late and did not pose the basic principles of conflict solutions mentioned by the Russian and Kazakh presidents. In fact, the whole text is far too general for that, as it was composed to be acceptable for all summit participants.
The Kazakh president, Nursultan Nazarbayev, suggested spreading OSCE administrative bodies all over the organization's responsibility zone. He proposed starting with new financial institutions. However, the final declaration did not mirror all his suggestions.
The main problem of the Summit was that the officials could not reach mutual understanding in conflict issues. No progress has been reached in promoting Russian -Georgian relations. According to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov the international community has de-facto agreed with Abkhazia's and South Ossetia's independence by including them in Geneva talks process as equal partners and the conditions posed by some of our 'Western colleagues' during the meeting are unacceptable.
Previously Russian President Dmitry Medvedev addressed the summit and stated the necessity of elaboration of common principles in conflict regulation that will be applied on all the OSCE territories. He hinted at the situation when the international community recognized Kosovan independence while refusing to recognize the ex-Georgian republics. However, after that Medvedev left the Summit, despite the fact that he was due to stay there for one more day.
Another failure of the Summit was connected to the Nagorno-Karabakh peace process. The Armenian and Azerbaijani presidents were expected to hold talks. Medvedev and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton agreed to mediate the talks. However, the meeting did not take place at all.
While addressing the summit, the Azerbaijani president declared his intention to settle the conflict as soon as possible, however, he insisted on recognition of the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan and accused Armenia of hampering the talks. For his part, the Armenian president stated that he will "be forced to recognize Karabakh independence" if Azerbaijan uses force to re-establish its control over the territory.
The next chairman of the OSCE, Lithuania, has already declared its intention to place European conflict settlement on the top of the agenda. The OSCE Minsk Group is to increase its efforts in arranging peace talks. However, for now the results of the OSCE's peacemaking activity leaves much to be desired.
Evgeniy Krishtalev. Exclusively for VK
