10:45 A.M. EDT
MR. DENIG: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the Washington Foreign Press Center. Welcome, also, to journalists in the New York Foreign Press Center.
We are very pleased this afternoon to be able to host a briefing on the Annual Session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. The session this year will be held in Washington, D.C., July 1 through 5, and so it is particularly appropriate that we have a briefing in advance of the session here today.
The briefing is a background briefing -- attribution should be to "Senior officials of the Parliamentary Assembly of the OSCE" -- but for your information I will introduce the speakers. [Not transcribed.] Each one of the gentlemen will have an opening statement to make and after that we'll be very happy to take your questions.
BRIEFER ONE: Okay, thank you so very much, and I thank you all, those here in Washington and in New York, for attending this briefing today. As [Briefer One Title], it's a distinct pleasure to provide you with some background information on our annual session that's going to be here in Washington next month. I am particularly proud, as are all of the members of the Assembly, that this will be the first time that the Parliamentary Assembly of the OSCE is meeting in America. And while there are many transatlantic organizations, one that comes to mind, NATO, has met in the United States on two different occasions. A good friend of mine, Republican colleague [name omitted], was their chair and brought them to Orlando. But here we are in the nation's capital and I feel that it is a singular honor to be in the leadership role as [title of position] of the organization at this time.
I also would like to emphasize the fact that I could not have asked for more support than this organization has received from the Speaker of the House of Representatives. Speaker Hastert has made this more than a bipartisan effort in bringing this Assembly here and has provided the necessary guidance through his own office and created inside his office a staff that will, as a result of this meeting, go forward with other Parliamentary activities that come to the United States of America under the aegis of Speaker.
In the Helsinki process and the Helsinki Commission, Senator Brownback this year is the sitting Chair of the Helsinki Commission and Senator Brownback will be in attendance. A little brief background for some who may not know, the OSCE is a regional security organization headquartered in Vienna and it encompasses, of course, the United States of America and Canada, which -- all of Europe, East too, and including the Caucasus and the five Central Asian states, a total of 55 members. The OSCE is the primary instrument in the region for conflict prevention and crisis management, being current and of interest, but a big cry was made after the recent problems in Uzbekistan for the OSCE to conduct an appropriate investigation. It is the kind of thing that the Organization does. We also spend a great deal of time in conflict prevention, free and independent meeting.
And at this particular meeting here in Washington, for purposes of the journalists, we will be giving a journalism award and that will be announced -- I forget the exact date -- but it will be announced during the meeting and we actually have a ceremony of some consequence where we recognize those among your peers who have exerted extraordinary effort in providing a free and fair and accurate account of events as they transpire. We had a substantial number of nominees and I'll keep the person who will receive that award until that time.
We advocate a free and independent media. We deal significantly in the democratic electoral process, support for human rights and counterterrorism measures, just to name a few. The House of Representatives’ sitting Chair of the Helsinki process, Chris Smith, has been a leading advocate in a subject that the Secretary of State today briefed on, and that is the subject of human trafficking. And Congressman Smith is from New Jersey. It happens that today he is in Romania and I assure you, wherever he is, he's discussing that particular topic is that is high on our interest level.
This organization doesn't have the same visibility as many other international organizations because a victory for the OSCE is a crisis that does not develop. The parliamentary dimension brings together domestic members of parliament from across the OSCE, from Vancouver to Vladivostok. And I'm proud of the fact that we have had increasing attendance over the years. I've been a member of the Organization now for nine years, beginning as a rapporteur in the first meeting that I attended in Warsaw, Poland, and ultimately resulting in my election as [title] in Edinburgh last year.
We have developed mechanisms for the prevention and resolution of conflicts. We provide support to the consolidation of democratic institutions in OSCE states. And our major events are hosted by national parliamentarians. And as I've indicated, next month we’ll be here for the first time.
The [title] and I have been to many of the venues of specific interest in the participating states, probably as much or more than most people thought we would be able to accomplish in a one-year period of time in my tenure. But of course, the most important part of our work is the Parliamentary Assembly and we will be coming here. I expect that there will be as many as 300 parliamentarians from the participating states, and if the past is any record of their numbers, we will probably have as many as 47 or 48 of the participating states represented. In addition to just the parliamentarians coming, they bring with them a staff and hopefully -- I have encouraged five trips at this time, hoping that some of them will find their way to the thriving metropolis that I represent in Florida, and some few might.
I could give you just a quick synopsis [of the upcoming Parliamentary Assembly]. The first day of our meeting of what we call our standing committee, we receive reports from the various ad hoc committees and special representatives, for example, on Belarus and Nagorno-Karabakh, as I mentioned, Congressman Smith, human trafficking, and there are a variety of other issues. Speaking of that opening day, our Secretary, Condoleezza Rice, will be one of our featured speakers. The Chairman-in-Office, the Slovenian Foreign Minister, Dimitrij Rupel, will also make a presentation and he is the main person in the political leadership of the OSCE governmental side, and that part of the organization, the Chair-in-Office, rotates on an annual basis. Minister Rupel may be known to many of you in the international media for the reason that he was the Slovenian Ambassador to the United States. At that meeting he will be open to questions from the parliamentarians, which is an important opportunity for members of parliament from across the region to hold the organization accountable. The Speaker of the House of Representatives will speak. This is also under the aegis of the Majority Leader of the U.S. Senate, so Senator Frist is also scheduled to address the Assembly and, of course, I mention and reiterate the fact that we are very proud of the fact that we will be making a significant journalism award.
The following days, members debate draft resolutions which are presented in three general committees and we happen to have here in the United States one of the chairs of one of the committees and that's Ben Cardin, who is from Maryland and a member of the House of Representatives chairs our second basket. We expect specific resolutions to be debated on issues such as matters pertaining to Kyrgyzstan, terrorism, suicide bombings, trafficking in human beings and expect that you can -- ought to hear by being there the Guantanamo detention center. We have had in the past and perhaps one of our most active supplemental discussions took place surrounding the issue of Guantanamo, and I actually have appointed special representatives to make a presentation there and a special note to me and to my predecessor, Bruce George from the United Kingdom, is the fact that we have a Mediterranean contact group and that consists of six countries around the Mediterranean. It's my great hope that Lebanon, once very stable, will join us, and indeed others, along the way.
But I made it a point of interest of mine such that I traveled to Morocco and to Tunisia and to Algeria and to Lebanon and to Egypt and to Jordan and to Israel with the specific purpose of making sure that the observer status is recognized and at this meeting they will have all the opportunities under our leadership of Bruce George who are appointed as my special representatives for the Mediterranean contact group.
Then the last day will be passing what will then be known as the Washington Declaration, and it will be the recommendation on many of the issues that I've discussed and perhaps some that I'm not aware of but will come by way of resolutions offered by the various members of the assemblies of the participating states.
All of our major meetings will be open to the media and there will be interpretation in all six official languages -- English, French, German, Italian, Russian and Spanish. I can assure you that most of our members will be more than happy to meet with members of their media that are here as well as others and we can arrange this in advance by having you contact the Secretariat's press councilor in Copenhagen and, of course, during the session.
I ask you in light of my vanity to visit our website for added information and emphasis. The website is www.oscepa.org and I think that there is much useful information that you will find there. I thank you again for attending this briefing and I hope that it has been of use to you. I would now like to ask my good friend, [name and title], if I left anything out, for him to add any comments. I apologize for taking so long but it's so important and I want to make sure that the information is a part of the transcript, so I appreciate your patience here and in New York and will be available to answer questions.
BRIEFER TWO: I think the Congressman has covered the ground pretty well. You will have received, if you've picked up on the tables outside, I think all of the information you could possibly want at this stage: the draft resolutions that have been prepared; the brochure that's being prepared that describes the committees and the leadership and what they do; some other materials about the Assembly and the work it does in election monitoring; the journalism prize and other information which I think will be useful to you.
The fact that we have nearly 300 parliamentarians from nearly 50 European states in the nation's capital discussing transatlantic and security issues and human rights will probably be of interest to some of you particularly who work with the parliamentarians from your particular countries. So I think it's going to be a good show, and the U.S. Congress is doing a great job in preparing for this event with the Secretary of State and the OSCE Chairman-in-Office, Foreign Minister of Slovenia, Dimitrij Rupel, I think we'll have a very interesting, lively meeting, good discussions.
BRIEFER ONE: I also would add that while we cannot make any announcement regarding what, if anything, the White House may do, the White House has been requested to participate and we've had active discussions with the administration regarding what level of participation we will have. And in light of the fact that the OAS Genearal Assembly meeting in Ft. Lauderdale this weekend and the President, Ms. Rice and others from the administration are going to be attending their business there, I certainly hope that if we bring this many parliamentarians to Washington that we will have the President's involvement and I rather suspect that we will at some level.
MR. DENIG: Thank you very much. I'd like to open it up to your questions now. I'll ask you to, as usual, use the microphone and introduce yourself and your news organization. Let's start on the left here with Russia.
QUESTION: Thank you, and thank you for turning over for this briefing. My name is Andrei Sitov. I'm with the Russian News Agency ITAR-TASS and I wanted to ask you about the OSCE from the Russian point of view. Both our countries seem to be keen on reforming the international bodies these days. The United States keeps talking about reforming the UN. Russians have a somewhat narrower focus and talk about the need for reform at the OSCE to make it more effective and more up to date.
I want to ask you gentlemen as leaders of the organization whether you feel there is a need to reform the OSCE and what kind of reform would you -- do you most important? Thank you.
BRIEFER ONE: Very quickly, yes, we do feel that there is a need for reform. The issues of transparency and accountability are always on the table and the Parliamentary Assembly for the entirety of the time that I have been involved has been about the business of seeking to do the necessary reforms.
The OSCE operates on the basis of consensus in Vienna, and many of us have advocated, and especially the Chair-in-Office that was outgoing, and Mr. Rupel has taken a certain aspect of that support that came from Solomon Passy from Bulgaria and indicated that that need is going to be looked at rather repeatedly. Because otherwise, what they wind up with a lot of times is stagnation when one person can veto anything that might be positive.
Some of us feel that there is a necessity for there to be more outreach in Central Asia, for example, and more in the way mission responsibilities in the Caucasus and Central Asia and less bureaucracy. And it would be our hope that that would be the case.
If there is a path where the United States and Russia may very well express themselves on policy differences, it would be in the area of human rights and it is in that area that I think the widest latitude of discussion with reference to how the organization reforms itself exists.
Now, we think so much of it and I'll ask [Briefer Two] to explain to you what we will be doing on Sunday and Monday here in Washington with reference to our proposals from the Parliamentary Assembly as it pertains to the needed reforms that we see. We have been about that business for quite some time, but the Secretary General, at my direction, has prepared a meeting and I'll ask [Briefer Two] to really describe what we're going to be doing here on Sunday and Monday.
BRIEFER TWO: As you may know, the Chairman-in-Office appointed a panel of eminent persons to look at the future of the OSCE; seven people headed by Ambassador Knut Vollebaek, who happens to be the Norwegian Ambassador to the United States at the moment, but was the Norwegian Foreign Minister during the Norwegian Chairmanship, and several others to take a look at this. He also asked the President [of the Parliamentary Assembly] to do something on the parliamentary side, so we have addressed somewhere around 22 experts: some parliamentarians, some senior people, some retired diplomats, some think tank people who know a lot about the OSCE and the CSCE and have written books and papers about it and are quite knowledgeable. They're gathering here, not all of them, but 17 of them have submitted papers, which are being discussed among themselves. And all day on Sunday and most of the day on Monday, there will be about 14 people sitting around a table trying to digest these papers, compare notes, and to come up with some ideas which might be presented to the OSCE in conjunction or in parallel with the eminent persons panel and also in keeping with the Parliamentary Assembly's traditional role to be an incubator for new ideas and a recommender of change.
And I think that probably most people have recognized that the major problem within the OSCE has been its inability to act quickly, to adopt annual budgets, to agree on senior personnel, to agree on their ministerial declarations each year. There's sort of been a gridlock, so there needs to be a way to find a way for it to function more smoothly and that's one of the main things that the Parliamentary Assembly is addressing. I think that we'll be a major contributor to the process of reform or change or salvation or improvement or whatever you might want to call it.
QUESTION: Aya Batrawy with the Kuwait News Agency. You mentioned Guantanamo. Whose idea was -- (inaudible) -- like, can you be more specific? Are you going to have a group just simply discussing Guantanamo or is that going to be within a larger framework? And whose idea was that and how are you going to discuss it and what kind of resolutions are -- I mean, what's the goal?
And also, just a question for background for myself. I know Senator Brownback, he's had panels before or hearings to discuss under the Helsinki review. So can you discuss, I mean, his role in that and the U.S. Congress' role within that? Thanks.
BRIEFER ONE: Sure. We have a rotating chair at the Helsinki Commission. It's one year in the Senate -- this year it's the Senate's year -- and then the succeeding year will be in the House, and back and forth. It has been ever thus.
Senator Brownback and the Helsinki Commission members who consist of Senators and House members and the respective staff are about the business of having hearings which help to generate some of the Assembly direction as well as the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. The more recent ones have been, of significant note, Ukraine, on issues as it pertains to human trafficking, as I mentioned, human rights and the general dimension. And experts from around the world including members of this organization and others come before the commission and testify. Senator Brownback is the Chair and therefore it is his responsibility to coordinate those particular hearings and then to see to it that the appropriate reports are fashioned.
Again, we get good media attention at those hearings. They generally used to take place a lot on the House side but now that the Senator is the Chair of the commission, most of our meetings this year, with the exception of (inaudible), have been on the Senate side. We had a briefing that was held on the subject of Lebanon and it was, I might add, perhaps the best example that I've seen of an approach to help us better understand many of the dynamics.
Yes, I was going to ask [Briefer Two] to speak the two processes he talked about, about Guantanamo. Actually, for my purposes, the idea about discussing Guantanamo came from members of the Assembly when we were in a meeting and it was an add-on and perhaps was the most lively debate that has occurred since I have been a member of the organization. As a result of that, members from France and Italy and Belgium requested that I assist them as a member of the House of Representatives in being able to go to Guantanamo. That effort is a work in progress and in the interim, at the suggestion of the Secretary General, I appointed Ann-Marie Lizin from Belgium to chair a special committee that will report back to us. That's the context that gives rise to the discussion this year and the Frenchman and the Italian who made the original request are also members of that special representative committee that I have appointed.
[Briefer Two], you could probably add.
BRIEFER TWO: When there are issues which are topical within the Assembly, whether it be urgent conflicts like Nagorno-Karabakh or changes in Ukraine or election monitoring in some particular place, the mechanism that is normally used is for the president to appoint a special representative to sort of examine that issue and either bring forward a resolution or make a report. And in this particular instance, the president appointed the President of the Belgian Senate, Ann-Marie Lizin, who is also the rapporteur of our Committee of Human Rights and Humanitarian Concerns. So she is going about trying to determine how she wants to focus debate or resolution, or a report or whatever might be the manner in which this particular subject will do a draft and discuss at the Washington meeting.
QUESTION: I'm Kimiko de Freytas from the Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun. I just want to know how you proceed and how you deal with the crisis that the European Union is facing right now and how are you going to try to make, you know, these states cooperate with one another, especially when their countries for their constitution --
BRIEFER ONE: We can't make anybody do anything, but we can assist in the deliberative processes. I take from your question you have reference to the recent elections that took place in France and in Belgium and in Latvia where the rejection took place of the European constitution in France and The Netherlands, and Latvia in its parliament passed the measure. I don't know that that would be a subject for us in the Parliamentary Assembly but politics is what parliamentarians do and there will be discussion but it won't be from the standpoint of us issuing any directive from the Parliamentary Assembly as to what the European Union and/or the European Commission ought to do. It has far-reaching implications for Europe and for America and for Turkey and for all the world, but I'm sure that there will be more sidebar conversations and more personal chitchat. But as to the Assembly taking a direct role, I doubt very seriously if that's going to take place here in Washington.
I might add just for your information, and you probably do know, that Japan does have observer status to the OSCE and some of the most faithful of the observers in the nine years that I have been there have been members that came from the Japanese Diet to attend our meetings.
QUESTION: Giampiero Gramaglia, Italian News Agency ANSA. A follow-up on this -- on the last question.
The OSCE is a security organization. Do you consider the referenda in France and The Netherlands as a back for the European Union Security Policy and do you consider that OSCE has something to do to fill the void?
BRIEFER TWO: If the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly or the OSCE have any power to do anything about the problems that the EU is experiencing right now, there would be a lot more journalists in this room than there are now. But obviously, the European Union continues to coordinate politically within our assembly, as they do within every international organization. So, you know, I think that there will be -- it will be a topic of discussion, but the OSCE is one of those organizations like the EU and like NATO and like the Council of Europe who are continually trying to transform themselves to address, you know, the crisis of the moment or the problems of the moment. You know, I think that living in Europe, as I do, there is a never a week that goes by that there's not a crisis of some kind in the EU somewhere on some subject. So I'm sure that this is a temporary bump in the road, but they'll continue on down that road.
QUESTION: Natasa Briski, Pro Plus, Slovenia. You mentioned that at the conference, there will be representatives from 47 or 48 countries. Since the OSCE has 55 state members -- member countries -- I was just wondering who is not coming and maybe why.
BRIEFER ONE: Everybody is still open to come and it may very well be that all 55 do attend. I rather suspect Turkmenistan will not attend, but the invitation, obviously, is on the table. But I'm hopeful that all 55 will attend. It's just when I'm reporting to you the numbers that we have, those are the registrants as of this time.
BRIEFER TWO: Let me just say, when you have 55 parliaments, somebody's having an election all the time. So the Albanian elections are on July the 3rd. We're meeting July 1 to 5, so they will probably not be here. The Kyrgyz presidential elections are on July the 10th, so they will probably not be here. And Gerhardt Schroeder has called for a vote of confidence on July the 1st in Berlin and, as I understand it, has indicated that he will not announce the procedure for that vote until two hours before the vote, which means that there won't be very many parliamentarians leaving town. So, I think the Germans will come, but they'll probably be late. [Briefer One] mentioned Turkmenistan. Turkmenistan has not participated in the last two or three years because I think that they're -- they like -- they don't like to come and have their parliamentarians exposed to all that criticism for lack of observance of human rights.
We have had, at times, all 55, sometimes 53, 52, 51. I think we're going to have about 50 to 51, depending on those elections and a couple of places like Turkmenistan, who just aren't participating at the moment.
MR. DENIG: Let’s go back to Kuwait, please.
QUESTION: What is typically the role of the Mediterranean observer countries in these kinds of meetings? And again, just back to [Briefer], I went to one of the hearings and I found that it was just very -- it wasn't a very diverse panel or hearing. And my question is, what are these meetings that the senators or, in this case, now Senate would have? I mean, are these sort of to clarify a U.S. position? I mean, what is the purpose of the meetings that the Senator has -- the hearings?
BRIEFER ONE: On information and insight on particular issues, I don't know the specific meeting that you attended and I don't quite get your drift with reference to it not being diverse.
QUESTION: (Inaudible) Russia, Syria.
BRIEFER ONE: Russia, Syria. And when you said it wasn't diverse, you --
QUESTION: Well, they had -- what's his name -- they had a lot of expatriates basically from anti --
BRIEFER ONE: Oh, yeah.
QUESTION: That's what's I mean.
BREIFER ONE: I understand what you're saying. I don’t have a way of knowing about the makeup of that specific briefing, but I can cite to you countless others where the dispute range, insofar as diversity is concerned, was very wide. People on polar opposites, I might add, even from the State Department here in the United States, people briefing us who have different views on the same subject -- I hope that answers it in some respects. But I'm a member of the Helsinki Commission and when I go there, I go there to get information to assist me in developing policy and that's principally what we do.
BRIEFER TWO: I think you should not confuse the Helsinki Commission with the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly. The OSCE Parliamentary Assembly is made up of the 55 countries and their parliaments.
QUESTION: (Inaudible.)
BRIEFER TWO: Yeah. Well, that's the American part of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, yeah.
QUESTION: And then just on the role of the Mediterranean countries in these meetings?
BRIEFER ONE: Well, I can say that ever since the Helsinki Final Act was signed in 1975, there have been observer status or what they call associate member for Mediterranean partners and they are normally invited to all CSC and OSCE meetings. And they haven't all been there all the time. Libya is not a partner state for reasons which are political, of which you're well-aware, but Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, Israel --
BRIEFER TWO: Jordan.
BRIEFER ONE: And Jordan are observer states and there has been a strong push, particularly by the littoral states on the northern part of the Mediterranean, to focus more on cooperation in the Mediterranean area. So we've had Mediterranean working groups, the President has a special representative on the Mediterranean who's a British parliamentarian, now former President, Bruce George. The President has traveled to all of the six states. We invite parliamentarians from the partner states to join us in election monitoring projects, for instance, in Georgia, Russia, and Ukraine. We try to have as much interaction as we can in that area.
QUESTION: (Inaudible).
BRIEFER ONE: And we have a Mediterranean forum each fall. This year it'll be in Serbia-Montenegro in October. Last year it was in Rhodes and the year before that, it was in Rome, where they spend about a day and a half focusing strictly on Mediterranean issues.
QUESTION: Excuse me. People who -- representatives who come to the Mediterranean meaning, are there only those --
BRIEFER ONE: No, no.
QUESTION: -- (inaudible) the entire.
BRIEFER TWO: You see parliamentary (inaudible) are invited to go.
MR. DENIG: Let's go back to Russia, please.
QUESTION: Andrei Sitov, TASS, again. I was intrigued by your comment that some countries do not come, not to be under criticism, that is (inaudible). Does Belarus come to such (inaudible)? Does come. Yeah, they do. That's kind of what I expected. But my question is --
BRIEFER TWO: And the United States shows up also, as well as Russia.
QUESTION: Yeah. And that's actually my question. I mean, do you feel that some of the countries may be singled out for criticism? Some like the United States or Russia maybe because of their size and importance and -- like being focused on some -- for other reasons, such as Belarus or -- I don't know. You tell me what other countries you criticize most of all.
The Russians, as you know, have said on numerous occasions recently that there is a sort of a double stand there. And they believe that, for instance, the human right situation in the Baltic is not fully addressed by the OSC where there is significant minority of Russian speakers are basically discriminated against. So I was just wondering if you could comment on this criticism and singling out countries for criticism. Thank you.
BRIEFER ONE: Thanks to you. That it's the organization for security and cooperation, not criticism. It turns out that what's viewed as criticism comes from those who have differing views on different subjects. And I can tell you that I've seen progress in nine years in this assembly such that when I began -- and the [Title] can attest to this much better because he has been there and has done a magnificent job from the beginning -- I have been in meetings without naming certain of the participating states. And their parliamentarian could not even stand to be in the room together.
And as recently as our last meeting, the same two politicians that have been on the organization for nine years and myself sat and talked for the greater portion of 40 minutes together about subjects of vital interest to them that they have totally different opinions about, but they are beginning to understand that that's what democracy building is. And therefore, the camaraderie, the level of participation, the staffs of the participating states getting to know each other, bridging cultural gaps, bridging language barriers allows that folk understand that because you have a different view does not mean that all of us do not wish for a better societal framework for the world. And therefore, I think some of that antipathy that may come across to some as criticism may not very well be viewed that way.
I've sat in many a meeting where the wrath of Europe was visited upon the United States. Canada gets a little less. But I've sat in those meetings and recognized that that's what this is all about. I sat with my Russian colleagues and have gotten to know many of them extremely well as a result of this process, such that a level of trust is developed and we are able to introduce our policy measures.
I'm going next week to Cordova, Spain, for an anti-Semitism conference. The birth of the anti-Semitism and racism and xenophobia conferences came out of the Parliamentary Assembly. And much progress has transpired in that area, largely for the reason that people come together and meet. I know of no better forum than the Parliamentary Assembly has been for countries to express themselves and to allow for different views to be heard and for others to weigh in on those different views. So I say to my Russian colleagues often, many is the time that their view is one that I accept and believe is a correct view.
And as a result of that, a lot of change has transpired. I'll use the election observation. I think the Russians were absolutely correct to point out that the West was hesitant, for whatever reasons, in allowing election observation to take place on their territories. Well, last year, guess what, it happened in the United States. And guess who is leading the criticism against the United Kingdom -- yours truly -- for their failure to open up.
So in that respect, I can assure you that it is matters like that that cause us to come together. And we have more of that we agree on than we disagree on.
BRIEFER TWO: Can I follow up, just (inaudible) on that? What is known as the Helsinki process that began when the Helsinki Final Act is a series of commitments that states have made to each other and commitments about how they'll treat their own citizens. Some people fulfill those commitments and some people don't. Those that don't usually get criticized by the others.
So it's not geographical balance, it's balance in the implementation of the commitments that are made by the various states. One size doesn't fit all when it comes to criticism because some people do well in elections, some people don't. Some people do well in fighting corruption, some people don't. Some countries are not doing enough to fight human trafficking and it's in their area and those countries might be singled out. Some countries are singled out because they haven't been able to catch a couple of war criminals. But on Russia, for instance, at our annual session last year, there was a resolution that was introduced by the speaker of the Russian Duma, Mr. Grislov, that had to do with the treatment of the Russian minorities in Latvia and in Estonia.
Congressman [name omitted] and Congressman Hoyer co-sponsored that amendment. And there was a serious lengthy debate of this resolution and it passed. As Speaker Grislov said, I am really quite complimentary of the fairness of this process.
QUESTION: That -- obviously, I wish every success to your Parliamentary Assembly. But you would agree with me that the governments take so much sensitivity to such criticisms. And we have heard in the recent days how absurd some of the accusations from Amnesty International were leveled at the American Government, for instance.
But my question is not about this technically. Since the sensitivity to (inaudible) does exist, and since your resolution on human rights, for instance, says that in the case of every prisoner, the requirements set out in the Geneva Convention should be observed, that can be sort of taken as sort of criticism by both your country and mine.
I'm wondering how the resolutions themselves get developed, how high the chance is for their resolutions to be passed as is or be amended or whatever. And last, but not least, when we use this from this briefing, how do you want to be referred to -- senior officials, what -- is it "OSCE Leaders."
BRIEFER ONE: Senior officials and Parliamentary --
QUESTION: Okay. From the OSCE.
BRIEFER TWO: Senior parliamentary staff. (Inaudible).
QUESTION: Right. I know, yeah.
BRIEFER TWO: Let me just say in your question, what you have is a draft resolution. It is written by the person who is a rapporteur. The process is the following: At the end of each annual session where this committee will meet three or four times, debate various resolutions and amendments, they will elect a chairman, a vice chairman and a rapporteur for the next annual session. That rapporteur has the responsibility to draft the resolution. They have the authority to focus that committee's resolution on the subject that they think is most important within the general mandate of that committee, which follow the main three baskets of the Helsinki Final Act.
After the draft is prepared, the leadership of the Assembly -- the President calls the meeting of all the leadership, all the committee officers, all the Vice Presidents and so on and it's about 20 people, who meet in Copenhagen. We met in Copenhagen last month and they review all of the draft resolutions together. So they address questions to the rapporteur, they make suggestions, they criticize it, they try to cut the link, they try to make sure there's no redundancy. And then the rapporteur goes back on the basis of those discussions and drafts a final resolution, which, at this point, is only the responsibility of this rapporteur.
And this will be considered by the committee and this has been distributed in six languages to all the countries and there will be amendments to this. It will be put forward and they will be discussed, debated and voted on by majority vote in this committee at our annual session here in July.
BRIEFER ONE: And there are even provisions for it to come back to the general body on occasion. And then the draft resolution -- I mean, the draft itself, as I indicated, will become the declaration of the body having been voted on by the majority. I only add that one of rapporteurs that I think has done an excellent job in his presentation is Leonid Vachenko who happens to be a rapporteur of one of the committees that the [title omitted] just described.
QUESTION: It's really -- very quickly. Have you ever seen any government subject to all these perceived criticism mend its ways as a result of the resolutions?
BRIEFER ONE: Indeed. Indeed. On the subject of anti-Semitism, many governments have passed extraordinary laws on dealing with that subject -- Russia being one that did not have such a law until such resolutions came about. And indeed, some of the conflicts we find great movement taking place as a result of these resolutions. But an awareness is what is critical. And I believe that shedding light on these subjects has been very, very helpful for all dies, even when people leave knowing that they were criticized. I have seen manifestations of change throughout the region, including the United States permitting election observers, for example.
BRIEFER TWO: The answer to your question is many, many times, governments have reacted by saying, "maybe you don't understand, why don't you come and talk to us about it or what can we do to improve the situation" or "let's open a dialogue" or "we want to invite your congressional delegation or your assembly delegation to come to our country and look at this situation." This has been done many, many times. It's done quite often because no government likes to be subjected to criticism and most of them react to it in a positive way and consider it constructive and perhaps useful. And if they believe it's wrong, they address the substance of the discussion, not the fact that they were criticized.
MR. DENIG: We'll let the young lady on the left be the last.
QUESTION: I was just wondering if you can tell us some more about the status of the French candidate to succeed Yankovich as the Secretary General? Does he have support from the United States and I had to -- I think that Russia in past had some reservations about who should succeed him?
BRIEFER ONE: Did Mr. Rupel hold a press conference today saying anything?
QUESTION: No.
BRIEFER ONE: Well, if he didn't you probably know as much as we do about the last thing. But the matter is open until such time as the chair and office makes his decision.
BRIEFER TWO: It's a rather mysterious process. It's done by the governments in consultation with each other behind closed doors. And they started yesterday in Vienna what they call the "silence procedure." The Slovenian chair put forward the name of the French candidate. The other two candidates from Albania and Switzerland withdrew and there is a process now whereby if no government objects, by telling the Slovenian Government they object within two weeks, then it will be considered a decision that Mr. [name omitted] will be Secretary General. And what all the governments positions are, I really don’t know.
MR. DENIG: Thank you. We just remind you please this was a background briefing and therefore attribution should be senior officials of the Parliamentary Assembly of the OSCE.
Thank you very much to our briefers and thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for participating.
BRIEFER ONE: Thank you.
BRIEFER TWO: Thank you.
