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OSCE Ministerial Council starts meeting in Helsinki â€“ UPDATED

OSCE Ministerial Council starts meeting in Helsinki â€“ <font color=red>UPDATED </font>

04 December 2008 09:04 (UTC +04:00)

Foreign Minister of Azerbaijan is also attending the meeting, APA correspondent reports from Helsinki. Before the opening session, OSCE Chairman-in-Office, Finnish Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb welcomed the guests in the exhibition center where the summit takes place. Schedule of the speeches has already been specified. Azerbaijani Foreign Minister is the 27th to address the meeting.
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OSCE Ministerial Council Helsinki meeting started with the discussion of its agenda. The agenda was approved without annexes, APA correspondent reports from Helsinki. Finnish President Tarja Halonen addressed the participants. She said the OSCE must play an active role in the international processes. â€œWe reported to ourselves about the OSCE principles and conceptions during our presidency in the organization. This year we witnessed the processes led to the independence of Kosovo. It was not an ordinary process. Then we witnessed tragic events in Georgia, which caused multiple human suffers and created crowd of refugees. The OSCE actively participated in the settlement of this conflict. The situation is not stable yet and much work has to be done. The latest developments showed that we have to play an active role in the post-conflict period in the regionsâ€.