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After 35 years, the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) has decided, in the course of its ministerial council held in Athens last December, to assume “conflict resolution” in its mandate and as part of its role. Until the last OSCE summit of Heads of State or Government in Istanbul in 1999 (para.7, page 2), and as recently as the 2008 ministerial council in Helsinki, the OSCE considered itself as a regional arrangement under Chapter VIII of the Charter of the United Nations, and as a key instrument for “early warning, conflict prevention, crisis management and post-conflict rehabilitation”. It is not surprising, therefore, that the OSCE has failed to “resolve” a number of so-called frozen conflicts that are mainly the result of the Cold War and the former Soviet Union. Strangely enough, although Cyprus is a Participating State of the OSCE and is within the OSCE area of operation, the frozen conflict in Cyprus is rarely addressed by the OSCE, if at all. The opening paragraph of the 2009 OSCE Athens Ministerial Declaration reconfirmed, among other things, “the vision of a free, democratic and more integrated OSCE area, from Vancouver to Vladivostok, free of diving lines and zones with different levels of security remains a common goal, which we are determined to reach”. The OSCE has practically done nothing so far to remove the dividing line and zones in Cyprus!
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