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 especially for Trend
Of course, the main event of the first day of the OSCE summit was a speech by Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, who set tonality of the upcoming debates at the forum of the international organization, being conducted for the first time over the last 11 years.
Kazakhstan's President started his keynote from the themes, priorities of which the experts of the Information Analytical Center of the Moscow State University had predicted long before the December summit. The speech dealt with the problems of social and economic security. And apparently, this choice was not accidental.
Over a range of issues relating to the so-called second basket of the OSCE, it is possible to achieve a common position, the contours of which Nursultan Nazarbayev has defined as "the principles of a coherent monetary policy, economic cooperation and integration."
Nursultan Nazarbayev reiterated the idea of creating a new world reserve currency of fundamentally different quality. Although that healthy for the Russian and Kazakh, but the Americans?.. Therefore, it is curious, what attitude will be towards the Kazakh leader's offer to include financial and monetary security problems in a special basket of the OSCE in addition to three already existing.
Topic number two - this is the problem of Eurasian security. And here it is noticeable that unlike the specifics contained in the first part of the President's speech, the second block of questions was outlined with big strokes. Nursultan Nazarbayev speaks about the beginning of elaboration of a comprehensive treaty on Eurasian security, but it is difficult to even imagine how long this process will last, since the first statements by the summit participants showed that the disagreement between East and West, and within the former Soviet Union are not only preserved, but also are becoming deeper and more systemic over a number of issues.
Confirmation of this thesis was the speech by the Uzbek Foreign Minister Vladimir Norov, who said that the OSCE has not played any positive role in the prevention and elimination of consequences of events in southern Kyrgyzstan this summer.
This statement inherently contradicts with other estimates of the OSCE's role in post-conflict settlement in Kyrgyzstan. The point here is not private differences, but in-depth and clear criteria on which the OSCE could be evaluated, as they say, without anger or passion.
Another important milestone in the speech of President Nursultan Nazarbayev was the idea of including religious tolerance in a separate dimension of the OSCE. According to the Kazakh leader, it can deal with the preparation of a fundamentally new document "for tolerance in the new decade."
It should be noted that the model of interethnic and inter-religious harmony, which has always acted as a trademark of Astana, during Kazakhstan's chairmanship could not gain a decent development in terms of practical steps to promote it. And because it is likely that at the summit, Nursultan Nazarbayev will try to give a new impetus to this direction in the OSCE.
How upbeat tone of speech by the Kazakh leader will meet the general tone of discussions at the summit - this question, of course, remains open. Judging by the first speeches of the Western representatives, the point of rupture within the organization will continue to persist.
The sharp criticism of the Uzbek side over the coalition forces in Afghanistan was quite surprising. While still ahead of the summit it seemed that the positions of the parties involved in the Afghan settlement, at least publicly, will not so hardly contradict each other.
So, on the one hand, yet everything continues without any sensationalism, and it is already a good sign, but on the other side - the "spirit of Astana" about which many Russian experts spoke so much on the eve of the summit has not yet turned into concrete formula and agreement.
Another day of hard work has left, and it is possible that the situation will change for the better. But already now it is apparent that the degree of separation of the world elite is much deeper than one might assume, based on the popular theme of "restart".