Helsinki - Commuters passing through downtown Helsinki were Thursday advised to expect snarling traffic as foreign ministers and other dignitaries from the 56-nation Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) were arriving for a two-day meeting. Finnish President Tarja Halonen was to formally open the session by mid-morning.
On the eve of the meeting, Finnish Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb said he expected the Caucasus region after the recent war between Russia and Georgia to be one of the main themes.
Stubb, who holds the rotating chairmanship of OSCE, said the ministers were also to discuss proposals for a new European security structure floated by, among others, Russia and France.
Among the 50 or so foreign ministers due in the Finnish capital were Russia's Sergei Lavrov, Bernard Kouchner of France, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband, and Germany's Frank-Walter Steinmeier.
Missing would be US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who has travelled to India and Pakistan in an attempt to avert tensions from worsening between the two neighbours after the recent attacks in Mumbai.
The OSCE evolved from the Helsinki process that, in 1975, during the Cold War, saw the signing of the Final Act of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe.
The OSCE's activities include election monitoring, and it has also been engaged in efforts to solve so-called frozen conflicts involving the breakaway regions of Nagorno-Karabakh in Azerbaijan and Transnistria in Moldova.
