VIENNA, February 8. /TASS/: Russia has not welcomed the initiative by the Polish OSCE chairmanship to establish "the Renewed European Security Dialogue" which overlaps all existing OSCE formats, Russia's Permanent Representative to the OSCE Alexander Lukashevich said on Tuesday.
Lukashevich expressed his puzzlement by the convocation of this event and called Poland's proposed initiative "ill-conceived." At the same time, during the preliminary consultations, the Russian delegation warned the Polish chairmanship about the prematurity of introducing this initiative with 57 OSCE participating states, which requires consensus support.
"Our position has remained unchanged: we need to focus on a dialogue with the US and NATO member countries, with which we seek to conclude long-term legally binding security guarantees. In the absence of progress in these fields, the conversation in the OSCE will not bring results. In addition, the OSCE is not capable of negotiating legally binding agreements," Lukashevich said.
According to Lukashevich, the Russian side sees no point in scheduled sessions at the background of "zero" results of the infamous "Corfu Process" and "Helsinki 40 plus". He highlighted that if the Polish chairmanship intends to launch a new negotiation format, it would be more productive to focus on the issue of improving the OSCE effectiveness.
