THE SECRETARIAT
The OSCE Conflict Prevention Centre (CPC) has, under its new Director, continued to provide advice to the Chairmanship and active support to all OSCE missions and field activities. The CPC has continued its support to field activities, as well as providing the operational planning function for the Organization as a whole. Furthermore, the CPC has begun to look more closely at border security, monitoring and border management matters. It is sensed that the OSCE will have to become even more actively involved in these issues.
All these recurrent and new tasks, including an increased demand to provide background, analytical and operational support to the Chairmanship-in-Office, make it necessary to strengthen this department in the Secretariat. The CPC also fulfils a key function in the political-military dimension of security, an area that in many aspects has seen something of a renaissance during the past year. CPC staff will continue to support actively the specialised work of the Forum for Security Co-operation, while also continuing important field projects on the OSCE
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Code of Conduct, on Small Arms and Light Weapons, and other related issues. Strengthening co-operation and co-ordination with partner countries and organizations This element of OSCE development in 2002 will be covered in the next part of this report.
conducting a number of project-related activities, including hosting a Central Asian regional meeting in Almaty in May, to improve the capacity
Situation/Communications Room:
essential support for the
Organization through round-the-clock screening of incoming information
of participating States to implement the Document on SALW
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of contact, including in emergencies, between all OSCE Field Operations,
providing a cross-border training programme on combating SALW trafficking for Uzbek officials at the Termez-Hayraton checkpoint with Afghanistan;
The Situation/Communications Room continued to serve as a central point
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facilitating discussion during the Third Follow-Up Conference on the Code
the Chairmanship-in-Office, delegations and partner organizations,
of Conduct through the preparation of an overview of relevant annual
particularly outside working hours. Most importantly, the department
information exchanged by participating States.
provided support to Missions in both the co-ordination of medical evacuations and with daily security checks and reports to and from Missions in the
The FSC Support Unit responded to calls made during the Conference for
field as and when necessary.
increased awareness of the Code and proceeded with the practice of providing assistance in implementation of CSBMs through various seminars
Forum for Security Co-operation Support Unit (FSC):
and roundtables for parliamentarians, military personnel and government
increasing its output
officials. The Unit has also:
The FSC stepped up its activity and productivity, partly as a result of the
• organized national workshops on the Code in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan
Organization’s focus on combating terrorism and partly because of the changes in the Forum’s way of functioning. The FSC Support Unit provides additional technical and analytical support as well as undertaking project-related activities designed to assist participating States in meeting their politico-military commitments.
and all Caucasus participating States
• held jointly with the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly a regional seminar on democratic control of armed forces and the Code of Conduct in Belgrade
• facilitated information exchanges prescribed in the Vienna Document 1999 and other OSCE documents dealing with politico-military aspects of security.
Both the Bucharest Plan of Action and the Bishkek Programme of Action
The Unit also successfully advised the FSC in taking an unprecedented
have given a central role to the FSC within the Organization’s anti-terrorism
number of decisions regarding political oversight of the Communications
effort. The Unit’s work on two key OSCE Documents – The Document on
Network. As the representative of the Secretary General for the Chairman-
Small Arms and Light Weapons (SALW) and The Code of Conduct on
ship-in-Office, the Unit chaired the OSCE Communications Group, which
Politico-Military Aspects of Security – constituted its primary contribution to
addressed all related issues and re-organized its sub-working groups,
combating terrorism.
thereby increasing their effectiveness.
The Unit was, inter alia, heavily involved with:
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preparation of the Forum’s workshop to review implementation of the OSCE
The FSC Support Unit encouraged and facilitated the delegations’ efforts to
Document on SALW held on 6 – 7 February and expert meeting on combat-
modernise the network and made significant efforts to expand the number of
ing terrorism within the politico-military dimension held on 14 – 15 May
OSCE States connected to it.
preparation of a comprehensive overview of the information exchanged on SALW
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development of special guidance for participating States information exchange and a set of best practice guides on SALW control measures
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