OSCE unlikely to host Ukraine peace talks - U.S. ambassador

The OSCE is unlikely to become the venue for negotiations on a peaceful settlement of the Russian war against Ukraine.

U.S. Permanent Representative to the OSCE Michael Carpenter stated this in an interview with Ukrinform.

"The OSCE does provide a unique platform with its inclusive membership. There may be a role for the OSCE once we have a peace negotiation underway. I would be hesitant to say at this point in time that the OSCE would be where that negotiation would take place. However, I do see potentially an OSCE role after a ceasefire is agreed," Carpenter said, commenting on the possibility of holding peace talks on Ukraine based on the OSCE platform.

At the same time, the American ambassador emphasized that, when it comes to a ceasefire, "it has to be a just and lasting peace that is on Ukraine's terms." "So that's a very important piece to this. But once we have that, at some point in the future, then, yes, OSCE instruments and tools could be brought to bear," he said.

According to his belief, we may be talking about some "arrangement that helps Ukraine with rebuilding its economy, reconstituting its infrastructure, supporting civil society."

Commenting on the OSCE’s role in preventing a Russian war, the U.S. ambassador noted that the OSCE is not a military organization like NATO so it has no military forces. And therefore "it is not able to act as a deterrent for aggression."

"What the OSCE has done since its inception is to provide tools and instruments, to provide military transparency and to build trust and confidence. Now, when you've got a country like Russia, which has shredded all elements of trust and confidence with any of its neighbors or partners, and where it is hell bent on pursuing aggression of a type that we have not seen since World War II, there is little that an organization like the OSCE can do to prevent that from happening," he said.

At the same time, Carpenter pointed out that like-minded countries in the OSCE, before Russian invasion, managed to show and prove that the Russians' interest in diplomacy and dialogue was a lie and that they wanted to wage war from the very beginning. "I think that was useful with some of our participating States to be able to show that, yes, in fact, we did everything possible to try to engage in dialogue and to avert war prior to February of 2022, and that it was only one party, or one side, that wished to engage in warfare, and that was Russia. So it helped us to be able to point the finger," he said.

According to the American ambassador, now the added value of the OSCE is that  "we have used instruments, primarily nonconsensual instruments like the Moscow Mechanism, to expose the degree of Russia's atrocities inside Ukraine."

In addition, for the first time in the history of the OSCE, it was possible to create a field mission in Ukraine, the Support Program for Ukraine, without reaching a consensus, which is being implemented without any Russian influence.

Read the full interview with Michael Carpenter here.