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Thank you, Chairman. I thank the Chairmen of all three Committees for their presentations to the Permanent Council today. Ambassadors, we are grateful to you and our Chairman for your strong leadership over the past year. We are also grateful to your teams. Russia’s unprovoked and illegal invasion of Ukraine strikes at the core of the obligations that we have all freely signed up to as members of this organization, including “refraining from the threat or use of force, the inviolability of borders. [and the] Territorial integrity of states. Under your stewardship, and under the guidance of our CiO, the OSCE Committees have sought to uphold these principles collectively as they form the foundation of security for every state represented in this room.
Ambassador Kinnear, we in the Security Committee see that the consequences of this war are far-reaching and relevant to our work on international threats. Our meetings this year have highlighted the impact on civilians when critical services are damaged, as well as the role of states in protecting these services in armed conflict. We heard about increased demand for sexual access to Ukrainian women and girls, and that “for poachers and human traffickers, the war in Ukraine is not a tragedy. It’s an opportunity.” We heard how border guards in Ukraine and other states have been heroic in responding to the movement of Ukrainian refugees, and we were advised not to wait for the conflict to resolve to address the underlying threats of organized crime that can develop in conflict situations.
As we look to the year ahead, responding to these impacts will be no less important. The OSCE has a role to play in preventing and mitigating knock-on crises in crime, trafficking, terrorism and extremism and the UK will continue to support the Security Committee to that end.
Ambassador Raunig, thank you for your work this year. You have shown agility in highlighting new economic and environmental challenges during the year 2022, in particular: the damage to Ukraine’s natural environment as a result of Russia’s war of aggression; Effects of Russia’s Invasion on Food Security; And the dire — and potentially catastrophic — consequences of Russian attacks on energy infrastructure. We welcome the continued focus on these topics in Second Dimension as Ukraine continues to succumb to the Russian war and the international community comes together to help rebuild Ukraine.
Thank you, Ambassador Carlson, for your leadership of the Human Dimensions Committee at this most critical time for human rights in the OSCE region – when fundamental freedoms are challenged, so is our collective security. We particularly appreciated the Committee’s focus on Ukraine, including Russia’s apparent disregard for human dimension commitments, along with spotlighting Ukrainian voices. Looking ahead to 2023, we hope that the strong focus on brave human rights defenders from Ukraine, Russia and Belarus will continue and that the recommendations in the Moscow Mechanism reports will inform the sessions. We have been starkly reminded this year that internal repression and external aggression are two sides of the same coin. When a state stifles the liberties of its own people, it sets and enables the conditions for invasion abroad.
To close, as my foreign secretary said earlier this week, “we have no higher priority today than supporting our Ukrainian friends until they win, as they inevitably will.” Our shared OSCE principles and commitments are at the heart of Euro-Atlantic security, and we will continue to work in the three Committees – with you Ambassador Raunig, our incoming Chairs, our North Macedonian CIO, and the OSCE Secretariat, Institutions, and Field Missions – to uphold them. Not just for Ukraine, but for all of us in this room.
thank you
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