Foreign Minister Dimitris Droutsas will be accompanying Prime Minister George Papandreou to the Summit Meeting of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), which will be taking place in Astana, Kazakhstan, on 1 and 2 December 2010. This is the first OSCE Summit Meeting to be held in Central Asia in 11 years, and the first ever in Kazakhstan.
The Kazakh OSCE Presidency (2010) undertook to continue the Corfu Process, which was launched last year by the Greek OSCE Presidency (2009), initiating the dialogue on European Security Architecture. Our country is in line with the basic priorities of the EU, having as a goal the transformation of the OSCE region into a “Security Community” where security will be built jointly among participating states and where the threat of violence will cease to be a choice in their relations.
Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev will chair the opening and first sessions of the Summit Meeting (1 December 2010). The second session (1 December 2010) will be chaired by Greek Prime Minister Papandreou, as the outgoing member of the OSCE Troika, while the third session (2 December 2010) will be chaired by Lithuania, as the incoming OSCE Presidency (2011). Finally, the plenary session will see the adoption of the decisions of the Summit. The opening session will also be addressed by the President of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, Mr. Petros Efthymiou.
November 30, 2010