Steinmeier: Germany to apply OSCE tools to resolve conflicts in Ukraine and Syria
- Germany plans to do everything possible during its chairmanship in the OSCE in 2016 to resolve conflicts in Ukraine and Syria.
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said in Bundestag, when speaking about the tasks of Germany as OSCE chairing country in the forthcoming year, an Ukrinform correspondent reports from Germany.
“We’re intending to use the tools and the OCSE negotiating platform in full scale during the time of our chairmanship … to resolve conflicts not only in Ukraine, but in the Middle East as well,” the minister said.
The diplomat also called “cooperation instead of confrontation, a dialog instead of silence” and the policy of “small steps” the efficient principles.
“The role of OSCE in resolving Ukrainian conflict has shown that it is an efficient tool,” the German foreign minister said, and added that the Minsk process would not have progressed so far "without the OSCE and without brave persons in the observation mission and the Trilateral Group."
The minister reminded that at the beginning of the conflict "there were those who called on the arms supplies to Ukraine to resist aggression, there were others who talked about inadmissibility of applying sanctions for diplomatic efforts," but foreign ministries of Germany and France did not follow such advices and offered another way – political process in spite of the all difficulties.
"Of course, the success of our efforts is not guaranteed. But we've come a long way,” said the German minister.
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