Russia hopes to enhance fight against terrorism with new treaty

BRUSSELS. March 23. KAZINFORM Russia hopes to raise the efficiency of the fight against terrorism with a new treaty on security, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.

"In a new treaty on security, we want to achieve a new quality of cooperation in the fight against terrorism, non-proliferation of mass destruction weapons and other threats and challenges that we face," Lavrov said at the 2009 Brussels Forum. The Brussels Forum is an annual meeting of U.S. and European political and intellectual leaders to discuss topical global issues. This year, the three-day forum has focused on the global financial crisis, climate change, energy security and civil freedoms. The initiative to work out a treaty on European security was put forward by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in June 2008. According to Russia, a new treaty should stipulate respect for sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of countries, inadmissibility of the use of force, guarantees for the provision of equal security, basic parameters of control over armaments and reasonable sufficiency in the development of military capability. The treaty should also include the provision that no state and no international organization may have the exclusive right to maintain peace in Europe, Kazinform cites RIA Novosti.