Transnational threats, conflicts, arms control, Afghanistan to be discussed at OSCE annual conference in Vienna

YEREVAN, JUNE 18, ARMENPRESS: The role of politico-military aspects in advancingwork towards a Euro-Atlantic and Eurasian security community will be anoverarching topic of the OSCE Annual Security Review Conference to take placein Vienna tomorrow, reports Armenpress referring to OSCE press release.The overall theme of the event will be “Towards Helsinki+40, finding common

responses to security threats and challenges”.

It is part of theHelsinki+40 process aimed at revitalizing and strengthening the OSCE as itmoves towards 2015 when the 40th anniversary of the signing of the HelsinkiFinal Act will be marked.Officials, experts and researchers from 57 OSCE participating States, OSCEPartners for Co-operation and international/regional organizations willdiscuss transnational threats and challenges; preventing and resolvingconflicts; conventional arms control and confidence- and security-buildingmeasures, as well as issues related to Afghanistan.

Andrii Olefirov, Deputy Foreign Minister of Ukraine, the OSCE 2013Chairmanship, will address the participants with opening remarks.Maciej Popowski, Deputy Secretary General for Inter-institutional Affairs,European External Action Service; Aleksey Meshkov, Russian Deputy ForeignMinister; Eric Rubin, Deputy Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Department ofState; and the OSCE Secretary General Lamberto Zannier will deliver keynotespeeches during the opening session.Ambassador Giedrius Čekuolis of Lithuania, current Chair of the OSCE Forumfor Security Co-operation (FSC), a decision-making body in the OSCE dealingwith politico-military issues, will report about the work of the Forum.