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Status of Conventional Stability Talks in Europe

Members

Hon. Dante B. Fascell

Ranking Member

Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe

Hon. Steny H. Hoyer

Chairman

Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe

Witnesses

Hon. Rozanne L. Ridgway

Assistant Secretary, Bureau of European Affairs

Department of State

Hon. Ronald F. Lehman

Assistant Secretary for International Security Policy

Department of Defense

This hearing, which Commissioner Steny H. Hoyer presided over, was part and parcel of an anticipated series of Conventional Stability Talks within the framework of the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe. The hearing also was a joint hearing of the Foreign Affairs Committee and the Helsinki Commission.

At the hearing, Commissioner Hoyer expressed the sentiment of a heightened political awareness of the conventional force issue, particularly in the wake of the recently ratified INF Treaty, tempered with the desire to not have these sorts of issues (i.e. the CSCE’s expansion to encompass conventional force negotiations and the developing overlap of the conventional stability and CSBM talks) overshadow human rights. Balancing of the different East-West relations is an explicit objective, the Commissioner said. Not only did attendees at this hearing discuss Conventional Stability, but they also discussed the status of the agenda in Vienna and the developing relationship among all these talks within the CSCE process.
 

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