Azerbaijan, Baku, Dec. 2 /Trend, E.Tariverdiyeva/
The Astana summit was held at a very high organizational and technological level, and in this the great merit belongs to Kazakhstan, who ended its chairmanship to the OSCE on a high note, said Member of Trend Expert Council, editor-in-chief of analytical information portal Vestnik Kavkaza (Bulletin of the Caucasus), Deputy Dean of History Department of Moscow State University Alexei Vlasov.
"Great thanks to Astana, bringing together the leader countries of the OSCE for the first time over last 11 years is a huge success of Nursultan Nazarbayev, who is equally respected in both Russia and Azerbaijan, and in the West," Vlasov said in an interview with Trend.
The OSCE summit, not conducted over the last 11 years, was held in Astana on Dec. 1-2 under Kazakhstan's chairmanship to the organization. The summit brought together heads of states and governments of all OSCE member countries.
But not everything is subject to chairman country, and whether there will be another opportunity in the near future to synchronize the clocks in this format is the big question, the analyst believes.
"From the summit I was left the understanding that the movement towards each other is more difficult and longer process than some expected. My impression is that the expected results were not brought to the end in any direction: neither the questions of reforming the OSCE nor the theme of local conflicts or the theme of the post-crisis regulation in Kyrgyzstan and Afghanistan," he said.
According to him, despite the efforts of Kazakhstan and other countries to give new impetus to the development of the OSCE, all remain at the level of declaration, because, despite all the talks of restarting and improving relations between East and West, the conflicting issues did not reduce, as evidenced by the materials published by WikiLeaks, which influenced the psychological climate at the summit.
WikiLeaks site, specializing in publicizing secret information, provided to a number of influential American and European media outlets millions of secret diplomatic telegrams and letters from U.S. diplomatic missions in different countries.
In addition, according to Vlasov, the OSCE is looking for and can not find relation to the new risks and challenges such as economic and environmental security. Yet the OSCE, as an organization of the summit, could not find prompt and effective action, and the final declaration, which may be filled with optimism, is little to change something, he said.
According to the analyst, President Nazarbayev clearly understood what is the possible development of the OSCE - a more active work in the field of economic security, financial currency markets, rules of conduct in the international economy.
"All OSCE countries have to work upon common financial regulations. The same can be said about environmental safety. Integration structures such as the OSCE exist to be a dialogue platform for discussing these issues," said Vlasov.
According to him, the biggest challenge for the OSCE is matters of conflict resolution.
"There are rules of game that can be agreed before the summit. The topic of Georgia and Abkhazia was discussed even more actively than Nagorno-Karabakh. Rather than trying to jointly promote the theme of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, which still have some opportunities to be resolved, the summit hinged on in the solution of the Georgian conflict," said the expert.
In fact, the game continues at the summit itself with zero-sum opportunities, Vlasov said. "This is an indication that some representatives of the Western countries came to the summit as an opportunity to demonstrate Russia the support for Georgia. And as a result, almost nothing was achieved on the Nagorno-Karabakh during the summit," he said.
Analysts' predictions come true 100 percent, Vlasov said. "The statement on Nagorno-Karabakh was another declaration of intention. Of course, this is a positive document, but what is next? Where are those advances, which the international mediators mentioned?," Vlasov said.
According to him, in this situation, it turns out that Russia does not work effectively, but the Minsk Group consists not only of Russian diplomats. Russia only assumes the role of direct mediator, taking reputational risk, but the West does not support Russia here, not showing that the works are jointly and severally done, the expert said.
"The probability of promotion in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict resolution quickly and successfully after the summit is at the same level as before. Lithuania, as OSCE chairman, will focus primarily on Georgia. From statements by the Lithuanian politicians it becomes clear what topics they consider priority for themselves," said Vlasov.
The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. Armenian armed forces have occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan since 1992, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and 7 surrounding districts.
Azerbaijan and Armenia signed a ceasefire agreement in 1994. The co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group - Russia, France, and the U.S. - are currently holding the peace negotiations.
Armenia has not yet implemented the U.N. Security Council's four resolutions on the liberation of the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding regions.