Maria Spassova

Stoil Topalov

Special GRReporter correspondents

The first in its history unofficial meeting of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, which took place in Corfu today, ended with success. The meeting was dedicated to subjects of European security and had to give answers to the proposal of the Russian president Dmitriy Medvedev about the so-called “tough security.” “The way they are grounded in the basic principles of the OSCE, security issues have three dimensions,” said the Greek foreign minister and temporary chairwoman of the organization Dora Bakoyanni. “Except for the so-called tough security, there is also economic co-operation and co-operation for protecting human rights and their discussion needs to be done simultaneously,” explained the minister. This is the reason why the Greek chairmanship has the ambition to gather all foreign ministers, participating in the organization, in 6 months in Athens.

“Corfu is a symbolic place. In Homer’s Odyssey, this is the island, which gives shelter to Odyssey before he reaches Ithaca. It symbolizes the point in time, right before reaching the goal, where a lot of work has been done but the toughest job is still ahead. This is exactly where OSCE is right now,” said in his opening speech the Greek Prime Minister Kostas Karamanlis. He stressed that it is not important who is to blame about a certain problem. What is more important is to admit that the problem exists and to discuss it together.

“A week ago, we were not able to discuss the Georgia subject at all. Today, the Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov is with us and we can discuss Georgia openly. We need to work hard, so that we can advance with a millimeter ahead when we gather again in Athens,” said the French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner in front of journalists. Participating in the Corfu forum was also the European representative of the common foreign and security policy Javier Solana, who said: “Turkey is still a country-candidate for membership in the European Union. The country is negotiating on many levels and I cannot say that discussions are going with the speed of light but there is certainly some progress. Turkey is our main partner in the Middle East and in Caucasia and we are working side by side.”

The long-expected meeting between the Greek foreign minister Dora Bakoyanni and her Macedonian colleague Antonio Milošoski did not take place. “Unfortunately, my program was too busy and I did not get the chance to see him,” was her explanation. After all, she confirmed her commitment about visiting Skopje, when she has time and to discuss all topics of interest of the two countries. Milošoski’s arrival in Greece provoked many questions, discussed by the Greek media, because he was allowed to come with a plane of the Republic of Macedonia – something, which happens for the first time.

Before the beginning of the meeting, Greece and the US signed two protocols for cooperation in the visa policies and for detecting serious crimes, which are opening the road for abolishing the US visas for Greek citizens by the end of 2010.