U.S. Department of State
Office of the Spokesman
(Sofia, Bulgaria)

REMARKS BY SECRETARY OF STATE COLIN L. POWELL
TO THE MINISTERIAL MEETING OF THE
ORGANIZATION FOR SECURITY AND COOPERATION IN EUROPE
NDK Conference Site
Sofia, Bulgaria
December 7, 2004

SECRETARY POWELL: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I join my colleagues in thanking you, your government and the Bulgarian people for so graciously hosting us and for serving so successfully as our Chairman-in-Office. The United States looks forward to close cooperation with next year's Chairman-in-Office, our distinguished colleague who we are very pleased to see here today from Slovenia Dimitrij Rupel. All the best to you, Dimitrij.

Friends: The Helsinki process has been and remains a key catalyst for peaceful, democratic change. My personal experience with the Helsinki process dates from 1990, when as Chairman of the American Joint Chiefs of Staff I represented the United States at the first Military Doctrine seminar, which was held in the Hall of the Congress in Vienna. And it was a fascinating moment for me to sit with all of the military leaders from throughout Europe--NATO, the Warsaw Pact and all of the other non-aligned nations of Europe--for the first time. A new era of hope had just dawned for a Europe whole, free and at peace.

We can be proud of our accomplishments, but we also know that Helsinki's great promise has yet to be realized in many important areas.

Within our OSCE community, incidents of anti-Semitism, racism, hate crimes and discrimination against Muslims are on the rise. We must renew our shared determination to combat racial and ethnic hatred, xenophobia and discrimination in all participating states.

In parts of our OSCE community, frozen conflicts still remain frozen fifteen years after the end of the Cold War. In the months since our last ministerial meeting, there has been little headway made toward resolution of the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh or in breakaway regions of Moldova and Georgia. A new push from the OSCE and by the leaders of participating states is needed.

Russia's commitments to withdraw its military forces from Moldova, and to agree with Georgia on the duration of the Russian military presence there, remain unfulfilled. A core principle of the CFE Treaty is host country agreement to the stationing of forces. The United States remains committed to moving ahead with ratification of the Adapted CFE Treaty, but we will only do so after all the Istanbul commitments on Georgia and Moldova have been met. And we stand ready to assist with reasonable costs associated with the implementation of those commitments.

We are closely following events in Ukraine, and heartened by efforts to ensure an outcome that reflects the will of the Ukrainian people and respects the rule of law. The international facilitators have provided valuable assistance. What is important now is for all sides to cooperate fully in the implementation of the December 3 decision of the Supreme Court.

All of us in the OSCE community have an interest in a swift, peaceful outcome through a democratic process. The Government of Ukraine expects the OSCE to observe the re-running of the second round, and we urge other participating states to join the United States in providing the OSCE with the resources, both fiscal and manpower resources, to carry out this mission.

At the same time, we continue to be concerned by the unfulfilled promises of democracy and respect for fundamental freedoms in some OSCE states. We remain concerned about developments in Russia, most notably those affecting freedom of the press and the rule of law. Belarus remains an egregious example of a participating state failing to live up to its OSCE commitments on human rights, democracy and the rule of law.

Some countries have recently argued that the OSCE's field work constitutes interference in internal affairs, that the OSCE has "double standards," and that the OSCE has concentrated its efforts in the former Soviet republics and has done it for political reasons. I categorically disagree. All OSCE participating states signed up to the proposition that fundamental freedoms, democracy and the rule of law are of legitimate concern to us all.

OSCE's 17 field missions are among its most important assets. The missions are working for democracy, human rights and conflict resolution, and, they're working from the Balkans to Central Asia. In Georgia, the OSCE's Border Monitoring Operation is contributing to stability on a sensitive border, and its mandate should be extended for another year. We all need to make sure that the missions have the support and the resources necessary to do their jobs.

For our part, the United States takes seriously its commitments to respect human rights, practice democratic government and uphold the rule of law. We have sought to lead by example with transparency and openness. At the OSCE's annual human dimension meeting, we hosted a side event on the abuse of detainees in U.S. custody in Iraq. These abuses were contrary to U.S. law and policy, and the United States chose to organize this event to show the steps being taken to investigate and hold accountable those responsible.

The United States bases its faith in the OSCE's future not just on past successes, but on the significant contributions this pioneering organization is making today. In the past twelve months alone, the record has been impressive. The OSCE and its Parliamentary Assembly undertook a Herculean effort to mobilize swiftly to observe and facilitate two seminal national elections in Georgia. And, in response to a request for help from Afghanistan, the OSCE sent its first election assistance team outside Europe and Eurasia. OSCE's was the leading voice from Kabul that reassured the world that the outcome of the election truly reflected the choice of the Afghan people. The OSCE's landmark work in fighting intolerance has become the standard by which other organizations' efforts are measured. And the OSCE has adopted concrete steps to combat international terrorism and trafficking in persons.

The United States always welcomes suggestions for ways to further strengthen the OSCE. We are open to increasing the OSCE's activities to promote security and economic development, but not at the expense of the OSCE's core democracy and human rights work.

Here in Sofia, the OSCE must continue to advance an active and ambitious agenda. The United States strongly supports the creation of special representatives to address anti-Semitism, racism and discrimination, and anti-Muslim sentiment. We adopted new measures to fight corruption. And the OSCE would take an important step forward by responding positively to requests from the Palestinian Authority and from Iraq for election observers.

Mr. Chairman, Colleagues, I am confident that the OSCE will rise to the challenges of a changing Europe and a changing world. I am also confident that this valuable organization will continue to serve as a major force for human dignity, democracy, prosperity and security and will do so in the months and years to come and will do so successfully.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

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QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, President Putin said yesterday that the United States is playing "sphere of interest politics" in the former Soviet Union in the name of democracy. Do you have any response to that?

SECRETARY POWELL: The people of the Ukraine are playing democracy in the name of freedom. What I have been seeing on my television screen for the last several weeks are people going out into the streets in Kyiev and other cities in the Ukraine saying, "we want to have a free, fair, open election." The Ukrainians have worked out a way to do that with the help of the international community. I congratulate the EU and President Kwasniewski, and President Adamkus, and others who have helped in this matter. And I hope today all of the pieces will come together and the Ukrainian Rada will ratify a plan to move forward. So, what we have seen is not anyone interfering in democracy - quite the contrary. What we have seen in recent weeks is the international community coming together to support democracy. Democracy means free, fair, open elections that are untainted, and that's what the Ukrainians deserve and that's what they are going to get, we hope, by the end of the month.

QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, are you going to meet the Russian foreign minister here in Sofia?

SECRETARY POWELL: I expect to. Foreign Minister Lavrov and I meet whenever we are in the same city or the same conference. And so, I look forward to seeing him in the course of the morning.

QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, is there anything you can say to reassure the Russians that you are not simply trying to extend US influence into what they have long regarded as part of their sphere of influence?

SECRETARY POWELL: "Spheres of influence," I think, is a term that really isn't relevant to the circumstances that we are facing today. If you look at the situation in Georgia, the United States is not interested in a "sphere of influence." We are interested in the Georgian people being free to choose their own leaders and to practice democracy, to reach out to both the East and the West, and to find friends in the East and the West. We are not competing or fighting over these places. We are not asking them to choose between the East and the West. I think that this is the same in Ukraine, it is the same in the Central Asian Republics, and in the Caucasus. It is a different world we are living in, where people want freedom, they want democracy, they want to be able to select their own leaders, they want to able to select their own partners and friends. And I think most of them have realized, as Bulgaria has realized as it came out of its past, that its interests are best served by joining the trans-Atlantic community, in this case NATO, the European Union, participating fully in the Security Council, taking on the leadership role of the Chairman-in-Office of the OSCE, and being friends both to the West and to the East. There is no need for these two concepts to be in conflict. You can have friends to the East and to the West and it is not a matter of a "sphere of influence." It is a matter of allowing a country to choose how it wishes to be governed and who it wishes to have as its friends.