Statement in Response to the Address of Mr. Robert Rydberg, Deputy Foreign Minister of Sweden Delivered at the 1275th PC Meeting

16 July, 2020

Mr. Chairman,

The Delegation of Armenia welcomes the Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs of Sweden Mr. Robert Rydberg to the Permanent Council and thanks for presenting the priorities of the Swedish Chairmanship.

Sweden will be taking up the Chairmanship of this Organisation at a time when the OSCE goes through a serious institutional crisis. This is not only the OSCE specific development, but rather another indication of challenged multilateralism in general.

Challenges to multilateralism are combined with erosion of trust and confidence among international actors – states, international and regional organisations, various groups of countries, initiatives, etc.

The founding fathers of this organisation back in 1975 defined the raison d’etre of the then CSCE as an architecture of comprehensive security to serve as a platform for dialogue and negotiations. Since that it had evolved both in number of the participating states, as new states emerged, as well as in substance. It has developed new tools in order to promote confidence and mutual trust among its participating States through enhancing transparency and predictability of the security related actions.

Unfortunately, the process of erosion of multilateral frameworks is not something new. For years we have seen how the tools and mechanisms of this Organisation were becoming obsolete little by little. Perhaps, we have not done enough to reverse this trend.

We believe that when one challenges the concept of comprehensive and indivisible security, especially its first pillar, it inevitably will affect the other pillar – the human rights dimension – of the OSCE. And we believe that the first victims of this negative trend are the ordinary citizens of our countries, and first and foremost their rights and freedoms in a broad and general terms.

We are pleased, that Sweden with its long-standing tradition of support to multilateralism is going to lead this organisation through that challenging time.

Armenia has always advocated for stronger multilateralism. It is our strong believe that in the context of the current gloomy global and regional security environment, multilateralism gains particular significance. We also concur with your assessment that respect for human rights, democracy and the rule of law, are fundamental to security both within and between states.

Minister,

For obvious reasons your priorities with regards resolution of conflicts are of utmost importance for Armenia.

We would like to make it clear from the very outset our principled approach in this regard. First, we expect the Chairmanship to respect and follow the lead of respective negotiations formats and mechanisms established for various conflicts in the OSCE area. It goes without saying that each and every conflict is different in its nature and background, therefore cannot be approached in the same manner. Tools and mechanisms applied, principles forming the basis of resolution, language and tonality used by mediators are different and should be respected. A differentiated and tailor-made approach are required. Principles and norms of international law provide a general framework, without any hierarchical order. The sui generis approach is largely recognized by the international community. Therefore, each conflict is unique and there is no one single position on the settlement of all the conflicts, let alone a “golden standard” for resolving them.

This is a well-known position of Armenia and I will not enter into more details on this, since I am sure that you have been properly briefed on this by your professional and able team here.

Second, people living in conflict areas should be able to enjoy the same human rights and fundamental freedoms. We believe, that this organisation, which has human rights as one of its main pillars, should provide the same level of protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms to everyone in the OSCE area regardless of political status of the territory they live in. This Delegation has long been advocating for such universal application of the OSCE human rights mechanisms, including monitoring mechanisms, in a status neutral manner.

With this in mind, the delegation of Armenia stands ready to support the incoming Swedish Chairmanship, wish every success to you, Minister and to the Swedish delegation, in your future endeavours.

MFA RA
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