Russian foreign minister to attend OSCE ministerial meeting in Almaty

The meeting of foreign ministers from 56 OSCE member countries will be held on July 16 through 17.

The ministers will discuss topical problems inside and outside the OSCE area of responsibility, including the situation in Kyrgyzstan and Afghanistan. They will consider intermediate results of the dialogue within the so-called Corfu process launched last year and geared towards a common position in respect of future European security. Moscow hopes that the meeting will also address Russia's initiative on a European Security Treaty.

Special attention will be focused on issues to be included in the agenda of an OSCE summit in Astana. Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev proposed to hold such a meeting in his country at the end of 2009. The majority of OSCE member states, including Russia, have supported the idea, since they have much to discuss bearing in mind that their last summit meeting was held in 1999.

A number of bilateral and multilateral talks are planned within the framework of the ministerial meeting. Thus, it is expected that foreign ministers of Azerbaijan and Armenia will hold talks involving their counterparts from the Minsk Group co-chairs (Russia, France, and the United States), and the current OCSE chairman to discuss Karabakh settlement problems, Kazinform cites Itar-Tass. See www.itar-tass.com