The Europeans want to promote a “Helsinki 2 strategy” to calm the continent’s security, as opposed to “Yalta 2” against the bloc that the Russians are trying to impose, French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said today.
“Russia has proposed fundamental principles that are very similar to a return to the status quo before 1975, namely a Yalta 2 scheme that actually leads to a resurgence of alliances, spheres of influence,” he told AFP.
“The proposed guidelines deprive some countries of their freedom of choice and sovereignty to join alliances,” he added.
Russia is seeking security guarantees from the United States and NATO to re-establish its sphere of influence in the former USSR and to establish a security zone between the Alliance and its territory in Eastern Europe.
In particular, Moscow is demanding a commitment from NATO to halt any enlargement to the east, particularly to Ukraine, and to reduce its military presence in the new Alliance member states, from the Baltic states to Romania.
“This is unacceptable to us,” said the French diplomat, whose country has held the rotating EU presidency since January 1, referring to the United States and other member states.
This would in fact result in a new division of Europe such as that recorded at the 1945 Yalta and Potsdam conferences between the United States and the Soviet Union, the two victorious powers of World War II.
“In the face of a strategy that Yalta 2 wants to promote, we must develop a strategy that Helsinki 2 would like to promote, in line with the commitments made in 1975 by all the parties to the Helsinki Accords, including the USSR. the period, which was extended by the Charter of Paris of 1990 “, added Jean-Yves Le Drian.
These agreements, signed at the end of the Helsinki Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe, focused on calming the West and the Soviets after decades of the Cold War, ensuring the inviolability of borders and allowing greater circulation of people and ideas.
– The Charter of Paris–
The Paris Charter for European Security, based on the Helsinki Accords, ratified the end of the Cold War following the reunification of Germany in 1990 and the fall of communist regimes.
Europeans need to step up their position on Thursday and Friday at a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brest (western France) following a week of intense diplomatic mobility between Americans, Russians, NATO and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. Europe (OSCE).
“Whether it is within the Alliance or in the OSCE, (the Europeans must) ‘take their place’ in the dialogue with Russia,” Jean-Yves Le Drian insisted.
“The fact that the United States consulted us before its meeting with the Russians on Monday in Geneva and after this first meeting is a positive sign. This dialogue must continue,” he added.
He also described a forthcoming repeat of the Normandy-style talks (Germany, France, Russia, Ukraine) on the settlement of the Ukrainian conflict, which has killed more than 13,000 people since the beginning of the conflict between Kiev and pro-Russian separatists in the east.
“I see signs of a possible recovery,” he said, following a joint visit by diplomatic advisers to French President Emanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Solz in Moscow and then to Kiev.
Russia has been ignoring this form of talks aimed at implementing the Minsk peace agreements (2015) for months, and took its name from a first meeting of the four countries’ leaders in 2014 in Normandy (western France).
In all these forums, including the OSCE where Thursday’s meeting will be held under the Polish presidency, “Europeans are responsible for defending their own security interests,” Jean-Yves Le Drian assured.
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