Russia wants to raise the efficiency of the fight against terrorism with a new treaty on security

“In a new treaty on security, we want to achieve a new quality of cooperation in the fight against terrorism, non-proliferation of mass destruction weapons and other threats and challenges that we face,” Russian minister of Foreign Affairs Sergei Lavrov said at the 2009 Brussels Forum.

The initiative to work out a treaty on European security was put forward by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in June 2008. According to Russia, a new treaty should stipulate respect for sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of countries, inadmissibility of the use of force, guarantees for the provision of equal security, basic parameters of control over armaments and reasonable sufficiency in the development of military capability. The treaty should also include the provision that no state and no international organization may have the exclusive right to maintain peace in Europe.

Russia is unhappy with NATO’s dominant role in European security and its dealings with neighbors that used to be part of the Soviet Union. Europe’s security should be run by the 56-nation Organization for
Security and Cooperation in Europe, Lavrov said during the annual Brussels Forum security conference. “We should give that a try.”

The idea has been repeatedly rejected in NATO capitals, which view the 56-member OSCE as unsuited for the task.Lavrov said NATO should commit to “legally binding” security arrangements through the Vienna-based OSCE to cure what he called the alliance’s appetite “for more and more scenarios” of unilateral actions. “NATO bombed Yugoslavia without any legal justification,” Lavrov said. “This bothers us. NATO takes it upon itself to judge everyone and everything.”

President Medvedev introduced in June 2008 in Berlin the idea of a security treaty in Europe whose pillars are respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of States, non-use of armed force, control arms and the principle that no international organization has the exclusive right to provide security in Europe.For more background on the topic see this CEPS paper on Russia and its ‘New Security Architecture’ in Europe.