Lamberto Zannier, Secretary General, Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe HARDtalk

Now on BBC News, it's time for HARDtalk.

Welcome to HARDtalk. I'm Stephen Sackur.

The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe has

It was a unique platform for dialogue between the west

and the Soviet Bloc on matters of security and human rights.

My guest is Lamberto Zannier, Secretary General of the OSCE.

In a new era of tension between Moscow and the west,

Lamberto Zannier, welcome to HARDtalk. Thank you. You have more

than 50 member states. European nations and nations far into central

Asia as well. They all rhetorically commit themselves to freedom,

security and democracy. The problem is that they don't really mean it,

half of them. Isn't that the thing that undermines your organization? I

wouldn't say it undermines, it gives us a strong agenda and a lot of

work, unfortunately. And yes, we have various situations where we see

deeper divisions in Europe, we seek confrontation. We see armed conflict

reappearing on European soil which we were not really expecting a few

years back. And we see challenges to the principles, the fundamental

principle that the organization. So that means a lot of work for us. But

the problem is from the very get go, the idea was that you would bring

together nations who were enemies rather than friends. So you had to

let everybody into the club, as it were. It is not like the European

Union where you had to qualify by meeting conditions. So half of your

members are repressive states which don't allow free press, which are

frankly authoritarian if not dictatorships, and you do nothing to

control your membership. Well, that's not true. We have

institutions like the representative on ethnic minorities, or the freedom

of the press or the institutions that deal with human rights and in

some areas of the OECD, there is more work to do than others. But

have you ever kicked out a member State of the OSCE? It happened in

the early 90s but there are some who say consensus rule is a problem and

we should move to some kind of a different way. A voting system, a

majority system. However there is a strength with our system. Everything

we do on the basis of consents and -- consensus, take Ukraine for now,

we're dealing with Ukraine, Russia and the United States. It grant

legitimacy to what we do and it becomes a strength for the

organization. But you frankly only keep that consensus as long as you

don't do very much. Let me quote words from Vladimir Putin, not from

this year or last year but from 2007 when he said, there was a danger of

the OSCE becoming in his words, a vulgar Institute for foreign policy

and other countries. He was suspicious of you then and he's even

more suspicious of you now. Dealing with Russia is not easy for us, I

have to say but one of my jobs is to find the space to deal with them as

well. I think that is the whole point of the organization. We

provide a whole framework to deal with everybody and because we are a

security organization, we take into account the fact that different

actors and to different layers in the organization have a very

different perspective -- players, and a very different understanding

of the security situation and the challenges for them. So this is

where we differ a lot from Nato or the European Union. We don't have a

core political agenda or a core vision of common security. No. There

are many differences, so many I don't know where to begin but with

Nato, number one difference is that they can deliver on strategic

policies they have and they can deliver, not least with weapons, if

you have to. Exactly. You cannot, you are entirely toothless so let's

talk about Ukraine and get down to the nitty-gritty and talk about your

activities. There you are on the ground where in the country as a

whole, you have at least 500 staff, most of them observers. Over 1000.

Most of them are observers in eastern Ukraine looking over the

conflict zone itself and try to figure out what is happening. In a

sense you are the eyes and ears of the international community on the

ground in eastern Ukraine. But the trouble is none of your staff can

intervene in any way. They can do nothing, they have no weapons even

to defend themselves and they are at the mercy of the forces on the

ground. Well, first of all my answer to that is that we are the only

international organization which managed to engage in that conflict.

And we managed that exactly because we are inclusive. You managed that

exactly because you're toothless. I wouldn't say we are toothless. Let's

look at this example for instance, there are two very different

narratives on what is happening in Ukraine. If you look at the Russian

media, the way they describe it, the whole government after the whole

Maidan process, you hear a very different story from what you hear

in the West. I suppose that is what I want to know from you. With all

your insight and the people on the ground of the reporting you get from

your staff, which of the is closer to the truth? What is the truth?

Well the truth we try to report back based on what we see on the ground

and that his being the ears and eyes of the international community, as

you put it. And that allows the international community to see where

reality is distorted. Please answer my question then, because we have

these different narratives and this very day one of your senior staff on

the ground has said that, such as the scale of the ceasefire violation

of the moment that there is a danger of serious escalation. He hasn't

assigned responsibility for that. I am asking you to front up with me,

what narrative has been correct in the past and who is responsible for

the ceasefire violations today? On the narrative side, I would say

first of all that we see on both sides, attempts to undermine the

situation that would lead, on the ground to progress in the

implementation of the Minsk agreement. Say you are saying it is

equivalent and both sides are equally at fault for the state that

the East Ukraine conflict is in? Well the notion of equality is

difficult. If you don't believe in equality, tell me what side you

regard as more culpable? One of the problems we had with the monitors on

the ground, there are only a certain amount of monitors there. We keep

getting obstacles to our freedom of movement, especially on the

separatist side. So you are saying when it comes to the freedom of

independence of movement of your staff, the pro-Russian separatists

are most responsible for stopping you do what you want to do. Yes. And

this is a steering our ability to have a good understanding of what is

going on -- obscuring. We are in a situation where we see a hybrid

conflict. We see important amounts of heavy weapons, of ammunition

appearing there. Because we cannot reach... Coming from where? We

cannot systematically reach the border. Because the Russians limit

your access on their side of the border and the separatists limit

your access and control your movement on the other side. Yes. We

have a system established on the Russian side, established that aside

when only two border crossing points were not controlled by Ukrainians.

In the subsequent phase, other border crossing areas were taken

over by separatists but we could not expand our operations to cover those

so we don't see what is going on there. We see that there is a

constant flow of ammunition, for instance. Let's just get down to the

situation. You have now described more of the blame certainly for

limitations in the scale of your operation to the separatists, so

that is something you have put on the table. I want you to put on the

else on your table. Your man has just reported these signs of serious

escalation. He hasn't, as I understand it, said who he believes

is responsible, so I would like you just tell me on HARDtalk, who, right

now because of this very dangerous situation right now, UCS primarily

responsible? It is difficult to point the finger but one thing that

Alexander saw was the two side coming closer together to each

other. It is alleged that there is one point on the frontline that is

50 metres apart. Exactly. In some instances we see movement on the

Ukrainian side where they have pushed forward. In other areas it is

on the side of the separatists. So does difficult to point fingers. We

need to co-operate with both to make progress and we need the cooperation

of all sides to make progress at the political level because at the end

of the day, that is where the situation must come from. In your

opinion, because you get reports every single day, perhaps you more

than any other individual is aware of what is going on in on the

ground, but is the ceasefire deal, the Minsk agreement, is it dead? No,

but I think first of all, it is the only way forward that we have, so we

have in facilitating and engaging with the negation -- negotiations on

both sides. It is a difficult job. How close are we to getting back to

a hot war in eastern Ukraine? I think there is a risk of escalation.

What we have seen in recent weeks is, first of all, redeployment of

some heavy equipment from holding areas further away from the line of

contact to areas closer to the line of contact. In some cases, we have

seen them in use. On both sides or one? We have seen that on both

sides. I come back to the question, I think the international community

does rely on you to a certain extent, please be as explicit as you

can. How close are we right now to a resumption of the hot war? The

active conflict in eastern Ukraine? In this moment I don't see the

preparation for it, let's put it this way. We are not there, but we

see more systematic violations of the ceasefire, we see the usual

heavy weapons and we are very worried because this could mark the

beginning of a phase where we will see more intense fighting and there

are victims also on a daily basis there. So this is a dangerous

conflict and we need engagement of the international community and

engagement on the format including by Russia because they have a very

strong influence on the separatist regime. I want to talk about Russia

in a moment but one more point on this. Wouldn't it be better if the

international community has Delph had armed peacekeepers on the ground

in Ukraine rather than your unarmed observer monitors? I raised this

issue myself at some point because I was wondering, can we and should we

be more robust? But then at the end of the day, what we see our

separatists who are likely not armed, they have heavy tanks --

light armed. And backed by Moscow, don't forget. What peace operation

can you put in place if you have to go in with a reinforcement Band-Aid?

We wouldn't be the right organization to do it, first of

all. The only thing is that you have had vehicles torched, you have had

your reconnaissance drones blocked so they can't operate. You even had

at least 11 of your staff held captive by the separatists. Maybe

some of those incidents would not have happened if they had been armed

peacekeepers rather than on armed toothless observers. You could also

argue the other way around. It could also have been a more serious

incident with our peacekeepers and the confrontation with the

separatists, between the separatists on the peacekeepers. Some of the

things you are saying are right, but for instance, our area vehicles --

Ariel, we have lots of pictures and we show them to our country 's,

obviously because we are transparent with them and we show them what we

see. So in many cases, guess we are jammed, but in many other cases we

managed to see military movements and pullback.

Maybe you won't say it but I will, jamming of vehicles is most likely

coming from Russian technology, which brings us back to Russia.

Russia is one of the most important members of your organisation. As I

said at the beginning, the roots of your organisation is in trying to

establish the East-West dialogue in the Cold War. You are increase is in

a way which would be undermined if Russia wasn't on board and buying

into the concept of the OSCE, so you can't afford for Putin to walk away

from the OSCE, and I would put it to you that it means you have

soft-pedalled on what Mr Putin is doing in his own country. I wouldn't

say that either. First of all, on the conflict and where it started

from, we had one picture of one of those pieces of military equipment

that were jamming the UAVs, and it is a system that is identical to a

system used by the Russian Federation. There is a strong

suspicion that that is where it is coming from. I can confirm that. The

point is you are committed, no, let's leave out Ukraine, let's look

a picture. You are committed to boosting the forces of freedom,

human rights, democracy -- big picture. Look at the Russian record

on political repression, civil society intolerance, media

suppression, electoral malpractice and all of these key indicators of

the health of a society. Russia, one of your most important members, is

failing. Yes. You see, we don't pass judgement on single country. I would

have a list of countries to give you. Believe me, I have a list. The

point is, Russia is important because of the history of your

organisation. Of course it is. And the OSCE offers the platform for the

countries to raise concerns in this context. We have meetings where

these things are raised. These issues are raised. This is done

consistently in the organisation. It comes back to whether there is a

point to your organisation. Let's go through some specific. Crimea. Last

year you issued a report on claiming out which expressed concern about

human rights media abuses in Crimea but you are not... Are you allowed,

your monitors and staff at a allowed into Crimea? -- staff allowed. No.

Russians made a statement at the time arguing that Crimea was not...

(CROSSTALK). Russia is eight key member of the organisation nominally

committed to the pursuit of freedom, human rights and democracy and won't

even let you into Crimea -- a key. If I want to go to Crimea, Russians

might let me in with conditions, so I am assessing clearly what they

will be, and I am cautious on this. Russians want... (CROSSTALK). It

seems Crimea is off-limits. When it comes to practicality, what your

message has, where you can go, one gets very depressed. Maybe the fact

that you can't frankly take on Mr Putin's Russia and achieve anything

in terms of real intervention or even monitoring in Russia itself is

a signal to other countries. For example, Belarus has thrown new out

after you didn't like their last election. Azerbaijan has thrown new

out after you didn't like the last election. I can carry on going

through a list of countries, which are members of your organisation,

which absolutely refuse to have you in their country any more and refuse

to listen to the messages you send them. These are not difficulties of

the organisation. These are difficulties that reflect the

problems in the relationship between countries. The countries themselves

have a problem addressing these issues. They have a problem

addressing them also in the organisation. You have a credibility

problem if you allow these countries... We come back to the

beginning of the organisation, to maintain membership in the

organisation. Chuck them out. Then we become what? The European Union.

Don't tell me you are committed to the pursuit of freedom and democracy

across the European space. We continue engaging on these issues

both with Azerbaijan and with Belarus. We are engaging with

projects to restart a practical cooperation. On the question of

credibility, be honest, was it a mistake in 2010 to give the

chairmanship of the organisation to Kazakhstan. And to have the summit

of the OSCE posted in Kazakhstan, whether President has just won

another election with 98% of the vote, and your own people saying

that it was a fundamentally unfair election without... With a total

lack of credible choice. Why did you allow Kazakhstan to host the OSCE

Summit? Why not? Why do we want to pass judgement on countries? Why

don't we give them responsibilities and then push them to live up to

their responsibilities? Working with Kazakhstan - I was not there at the

time, I joined after this - but working with Kazakhstan on an agenda

like the agenda of the OSCE is important. It is a way of moving

them closer to give them responsibility. You think it has

made a difference? You do that in 2010, it is 2016, and he has won and

98% majority. You are heading in the right direction? That is a different

issue. On the elections, we keep working on them. We work with the

regulatory committee. It is a question of government structure in

some of these countries. If you look at the post Soviet countries, many

of them have similar government structures. We will need to go for

the long haul. It will take time to change things in those places but we

need space to engage. It is a long hall. I am wondering about another

important member state of the organisation, Turkey. How tough do

you think the rhetoric should be on that right now, when we see

newspaper offices invaded by state officials, allegations of military

abuses, security situation that is deteriorating -- haul. How tough do

you believe the message should be to Turkey? Winnie to work with Turkey

on these issues. -- we need to work. There are statements from the OSCE

already expressing concern. The journalists who have lost their

offices, in OSCE, we spoke about one the other day, they talk about the

President, Mr Erdogan, as a despot, the death of democracy. You are

pushing for democracy across the European space. What you think?

There is a problem there. We need to speak up. Do you see Mr Erdogan as

showing grave tendencies toward authoritarianism? IC symptoms of

that, certainly, and... How can I say, freedom of media is an

important indicator -- I see. We need to work with Turkey on those

issues and our people dealing on the freedom of the media are engaging

with Turkey, the people working on elections are engaging with Turkey,

their mission is also monitoring the elections. As an Italian diplomat,

as you were, you watch or the EU does closely. Does it rob you that

in the mist of this worrying trend in Turkey, Europeans are offering

Turkey serious carrots including faster accession talks and visa free

travel to get help and cooperation on migration and security issues? --

worry. Does that trade-off or EU? There is a bit of a lack of

foresight in all this. The Europeans haven't, how can I say, reacted in

time, they haven't seen the signals. We've been discussing this issue of

Syrian refugees in Turkey three years ago. Europeans didn't take any

notice. They didn't seem to be concerned. And now the no-go sheet

and I with Turkey under pressure with the humanitarian emergency and

the risk is we see we might not have a very good deal -- the negotiation.

Under that kind of pressure, negotiation is one where you might

have to be including more concessions than you thought of

initially. We have to want it but you have done this job for five

years, pretty much. It strikes me that it is getting more difficult as

the problems you face not just in Europe but the hinterland of Europe

are more profound. It is difficult, because the security challenges we

are facing are much more complex than they used to be. We have

competition among key powers, regional politics are not getting

easier, and we have global challenges from terrorism to now the

large migration issue. I also see signs of interest to create

coalitions to work against some of the global challenges, for example,

terrorism, so we also find areas where countries in fact do work

together. OK, we have to end it there, but Lamberto Zannier, thank

you very much for being on HARDtalk. Thank you.