Press releases

MINSK, 25 October (BelTA) – The Munich Security Conference Core Group meeting in Minsk on 30 October -1 November is expected to bring together more than 70 high-profile participants, Anatoly Glaz, Head of the Information and Digital Diplomacy Office, Press Secretary of the Belarusian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told a press briefing, BelTA learned.

“More than 70 high-profile participants have confirmed their participation. Among them are Armenia President Armen Sarkissian, Moldovan Prime Minister Pavel Filip, the foreign ministers of Macedonia, Mongolia, Poland and Slovakia,” Anatoly Glaz noted. Attending the event will be also OSCE Secretary General Thomas Greminger, Commissioner for European Neighborhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations Johannes Hahn, Executive Secretary of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO) Lassina Zerbo.

Belarus has been taking part in the Munich Security Conference since 2006, Anatoly Glaz said. “We have traditionally used this platform to present our country's position on key aspects of the international and regional security architecture, to hold bilateral meetings with officials from Germany and other states,” he said.

Traditionally, the focus of attention of the core group meetings is security architecture of the region they are held in. The Minsk meeting will be dedicated to the relations between East and West, regional conflicts, the Minsk process, the economic situation in Eastern Europe, energy and transnational security.

In 2018 the Munich Security Conference leadership suggested holding its next Core Group Meeting in Minsk, stressing Belarus’ contribution to stability and security in the region and the possibility to gather key players in Belarus.

The Munich Security Conference is an annual event held since 1963. The event was initially meant as a dialogue between the Federal Republic of Germany and the United States on security policy. It later attracted the attention of political and military circles of other countries. At present the Munich Security Conference is considered the most important independent forum for the exchange of views by international security policy decision-makers. The list of attendees include high-ranking politicians, heads of state from Europe, the United States, and Asia, representatives of Armed Forces, NATO and the OSCE, security experts, representatives of military industrial concerns, leading journalists. Business circles show a steadily increasing interest in the forum.

The first MSC Core Group Meeting was held in 2009. Meetings are held in the format of an exclusive high-level dialogue with the involvement of a wide range of participants. They are a continuation of the Munich Security Conference and traditionally focus on the security in the region they are held in. The last MSC Core Group Meeting took place in Washington on 8 May 2017. The meetings were also held in Moscow, Beijing, Doha, New Delhi, Vienna, Tehran, and Addis Ababa.