NATO, OSCE, AND REGIONAL SECURITY ISSUES IN CENTRAL ASIA AND THE CAUCASUS

Year 1997, Volume: 2 Issue: 4, 0 - 0, 01.12.1997

Bruce George

Abstract

The vast space stretching from the Caucasus to Central Asia is a region where the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe OSCE has been very active. In 1996 the OSCE 'Troika' of foreign ministers paid a visit to all five Central Asian states. In September 1997, the OSCE chairman-in-office, the Danish foreign minister, Niels Helweg Petersen, came to Tashkent, Tbilisi and Dushanbe. The High Commissioner on National Minorities has visited Georgia, Kazakhstan and Kirghizstan. The OSCE also maintains missions in Tadjikistan, Nagorno-Karabakh, Georgia, Chechnya and the OSCE Liaison Office for Central Asia in Tashkent. Likewise, NATO Partnership for Peace activity in this region has been stepped up, and it is addressing post-conflict rehabilitation in the region which could also serve as an important test of the NATO-Russian relationship