Europe's security watchdog OSCE opened its annual meeting here Thursday with the focus on Kazakhstan's bid to chair the group and Russia's threat to withdraw from a key arms control treaty.
Over 40 foreign ministers from the 56-nation Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe are taking part in the two-day gathering in Spain, which holds the current presidency of the organisation.
The renewal of the OSCE's mission in Kosovo and a possible mission in Afghanistan are also on the table. "We need to regain the consensus over the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty, the rock of peace, stability and our security," Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said in an opening address.
Earlier this year Russia announced it would next month stop implementing the treaty, which limits the deployment of tanks, aircraft and other heavy weapons across the continent.
Russian President Vladimir Putin says the move is a response to US plans to set up missile defence sites in eastern Europe and Nato's own failure to ratify a version of the treaty amended in 1999, after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Russia ratified the updated treaty in 2004, but the United States and other Nato members have refused to follow suit, arguing Moscow must first withdraw forces from Georgia and from Moldova's separatist region of Trans-Dniester.
A meeting of representatives from nations affected by the treaty was held Wednesday and further talks are expected during the gathering, an OSCE spokeswoman said. The meeting will also discuss the OSCE's deployment in the disputed Serbian province of Kosovo, where it employs some 1,000 people, making it the body's largest field mission.
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