Russia proposes pan-European summit on collective security

UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- Russia proposed on Saturday a pan-European summit to try to develop a new treaty on Europe's collective security.

"The existing architecture of security in Europe did not pass the strength test in recent events," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told the UN General Assembly in an obvious reference to the recent conflict in Georgia.

This architecture "proved incapable of containing the aggressor or preventing the supplies of offensive weapons, contrary to the existing relevant codes of conduct," he said.

Lavrov said that the pan-European summit would take "a comprehensive look at security problems" and review a proposal by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in Berlin on June 5 to develop "a Treaty on European Security, a kind of 'Helsinki-2.'"

The Helsinki Agreement was signed by nearly all European countries in 1975 in an attempt to reduce tension between the Soviet and Western blocs.

Lavrov said that the new treaty is meant to "create a reliable collective system that would ensure equal security for all states ..."

"It is a process involving all participants who would reaffirm their commitment to fundamental principles of the international law, such as the non-use of force and peaceful settlement of disputes, sovereignty, territorial integrity, noninterference in the internal affairs, and inadmissibility of strengthening one's own security by infringing upon the security of others," he noted.

"Naturally, such a treaty should organically fit into the legal framework of the UN Charter and its principles of collective security," he added.