Стр. 2 - V

Author : A. Kelin
Director, Department of European Cooperation, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federa-
tion
Speech at the international conference "Yalta-Potsdam-Helsinki-
Belgrade: In Search of a Secure World Order," Belgrade, No-
vember 24-25, 2015
THE 70TH ANNIVERSARY of the Victory in World
War II stands apart from all other anniversaries of his-
toric events we marked in 2015 as a vivid reminder of
what could be done to the world order by ambitious at-
tempts to establish world domination, belief in the ex-
clusiveness of one's own nation and contempt to the
norms of law and morals.
The Yalta and Potsdam conferences, the events of unsurpassed importance in contemporary
history, laid the foundations of the collective security system in Europe and the world. It is the
legacy of World War II bought at an exorbitant price of human lives.
Let me remind you that the democratic principles of peace and security at which the sides arrived
in Potsdam and that ruled out a revival of Nazism and spoke of sovereignty, national independ-
ence, equality, and non-interference in domestic affairs as the cornerstone of interstate relations
were accepted by all. They laid the foundation for continued cooperation among the members
of the anti-Hitler coalition after the war.
Russia has done a lot to make the OSCE an efficient organization, a reliable security organization
in Euro-Atlantic.
Life proved to be much more complicated than the noble plans.
If our Western partners preferred constructive dialogue to the practice of imposing their prior-
ities to the detriment of others' interests and values, many nagging problems could have been
avoided.
Everything that was said about the need to return to predictable international relations remained
unheeded; Russia's invitation to sign a European Security Treaty to provide all states - the NATO
and CSTO members and those that opted for military-political neutrality - with legal guarantees
of their security was rejected; the Meseberg initiative of Russia was also declined.
NATO and the EU, the "oases of wellbeing," are no longer safe. This means that collective de-
cisions are needed to achieve genuine unity and security on the European continent.
The decisions of the Yalta and Potsdam conferences and the postwar peace talks prevented an-
Электронное приложение к журналу «Международная жизнь»
International Affairs: Summary№2, 2016
Our Past and a Secure World Order Today