Minister Borg, on behalf of the UK, I warmly welcome you to the Permanent Council and express our sincere gratitude for the herculean efforts from you and your team, to step in as Chair in Office 2024. Thank you for outlining your priorities for this year.
The UK remains a strong and committed participating State of the OSCE. My Foreign Secretary, Lord Cameron, made this clear at the Ministerial Council in Skopje in December, and has since repeated our commitment. You can count on the UK as you lead the organisation through what will doubtless be another challenging year.
We wholeheartedly welcome your continued focus on Ukraine, which must remain at the top of the OSCE agenda until Russia changes its actions, completely withdraws from Ukraine and faithfully complies with the OSCE's founding principles and instruments. We find ourselves at 700 days since Russia's unprovoked, illegal, full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which is causing immense devastation to the people of Ukraine. Our response needs to be one of strength, resilience and unity. Now is the time to double down on our support so Ukraine not only wins the war, but emerges from it as a strong, sovereign, and free country. Russia's efforts to undermine global stability must and will be stopped in its tracks. If we allow Russia to lay waste to this stability, the risks to the OSCE region, and the world, are grave. We will continue to support the OSCE structures which contribute towards a peaceful resolution and to bringing accountability for the abuses - across the OSCE's three dimensions - which the people of Ukraine have endured.
The UK was mentioned by my esteemed Russian colleague as waging hybrid war against Russia. This is nonsense. The only war being waged in Ukraine is by Russia against Ukraine. And to categorise UK support for Ukraine to defend itself against a brutal onslaught in this way is another example of the sort of disinformation that we see so often in this forum. The UK is committed to supporting Ukraine to protect itself and will continue to offer unwavering support to Ukraine until it prevails - as it inevitably will.
The UK also supports efforts to ensure peaceful resolutions to the protracted conflicts in Georgia and Moldova, including through the valuable work of the Mission to Moldova. Field missions strengthen stability and governance in the OSCE region, including the Western Balkans and Central Asia - they are a direct, on the ground demonstration of OSCE principles and commitments.
The UK strongly welcomes the 7 December Joint Statement from Armenia and Azerbaijan. The intention to normalise relations, and to reach a peace treaty on the basis of respect for the principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity, was a truly historic moment. We now encourage both parties to seize the opportunity to reach a lasting peace agreement to finally end the decades-long conflict and bring regional stability to the South Caucasus.
We welcome your desire to ensure a resilient organisation. You demonstrated this clearly by stepping into the role of CiO. We know that you are already working on agreement of a unified budget for 2024 and considering how to reach agreement on the leadership of the OSCE. We stand ready to play our part in reaching consensus on these decisions.
We also welcome your support for the autonomous institutions. UK support for the Third Dimension will remain steadfast. In this year of elections and against the growth of authoritarianism globally, it is more important than ever to uphold the OSCE's founding commitments on democracy and human rights. Media freedom underpins our shared, regional security; we look forward to working closely with you on this agenda too.
We welcome your cross-dimensional approach on other thematic issues - digital security and artificial intelligence, gender and youth, and the security implications of climate change matter to our populations and are closely linked to our OSCE commitments.
Minister Borg, thank you once again for taking on this responsibility at such short notice. Malta can count on the UK's strong support. We wish you and your very capable teams here in Vienna and in Valletta all the best for your time as Chair-in-Office.
Thank you.
