Deputy Secretary of State Stephen E. Biegun will take part in the virtual OSCE Ministerial Council December 3, 2020. Deputy Secretary Biegun will join foreign ministers and senior officials of the 57 OSCE participating States, brought together under the leadership of Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama as the chair, to discuss the full range of issues in the OSCE's three dimensions of security (political-military, economic-environmental, and human).
Deputy Secretary Biegun will call attention to the violent crackdown in Belarus following the fraudulent August 9 election; the recent violence related to Nagorno-Karabakh; Russia's ongoing aggression in eastern Ukraine and occupation of both Ukrainian and Georgian sovereign territory; the Transnistria conflict in Moldova and Russian malign action and hybrid threats. Deputy Secretary Biegun will also urge action to address human rights abuses and the repression of civil society and independent media, economic and environmental issues, and the need to rebuild military transparency by negotiating an update to OSCE's Vienna Document on Confidence and Security-Building Measures.
COVID-19 has had an impact on all three OSCE Dimensions of security. The OSCE Ministerial represents an important opportunity to highlight ongoing challenges and opportunities to strengthen regional security.
