Moscow objects to OCSE's focus on democratization (08/06/00)

Moscow objects to OCSE's focus on democratization

RFE/RL Newsline

MOSCOW - In a statement released on the 25th anniversary of the Helsinki Final Act, Russia's Foreign Affairs Ministry said that "attempts to turn the OSCE [Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe] exclusively into an instrument of democratization of individual states will only bring it to a stalemate," ITAR-TASS reported on August 1.

Such efforts, the ministry said, deflect from the Helsinki principles and "may eventually lead to the organization's degradation." Moscow, it continued, favors a balanced approach, one that will give "equal attention to all the changes and security aspects: military-political, economic and humanitarian."

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