Chairmanship
Ambassador Mara Marinaki, Head of the Permanent Mission of Greece to the OSCE, is Chairperson of the OSCE Permanent Council in 2009.
Personal details:
Career
- Feb. 2007 - promoted to Minister Plenipotentiary 1st Class
- 2004 - 2007 - Special Representative in the Greek Inter-ministerial Committee on Migration, Ministry of Foreign Affairs
- Dec. 2002 - promoted to Minister Plenipotentiary 2nd Class
- 2001 - 2007 - Director of the C4 Directorate for Justice, Home Affairs and Schengen, in the EU General Direction at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA)
- Nov.99-Dec.2000 - Deputy Director at the A3 Directorate for SE Europe, MFA
- Feb.95-Oct.99 - Consul General of Greece in Berlin
- 1994 - Political Counselor at the MFA Secretary General's Office
- 1993 - Political Counselor at the Prime Minister's Diplomatic Office
- 1988 - 1992 - Political Counselor at the Greek Embassy in Washington, DC
- 1987 - 1988 - Second Secretary, UN and International Organizations Department, MFA
- 1981 - 1985 - Third Secretary, Political Affairs Division in Thessaloniki, MFA
- 1980 - Embassy Attaché, MFA
Education
- 1980 - University of Athens, Law Faculty - Law Degree
- 1980 - 1981 - Ministry of Foreign Affairs - Diplomatic Academy
- 1981 - 1983 - Aristotelian University of Thessaloniki -Postgraduate Studies in
- International Law
- 1985 - 1986 - H.H. Humphrey Fellowship in the U.S. - Humphrey-Fletcher Fellow
- 1986 Master of Arts - The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy (Medford, MA) /cross registration with JFKennedy School of Government (Harvard University)
Languages
Greek (native). Fluent in English, French, German. Working knowledge of Italian and Spanish.
Personal
- Nationality: Greek
- Born in Thessaloniki (Greece): June 9th, 1957
- Married to Jankos Mavropoulos
OSCE suspends talks on Georgia mission
2009-05-14 19:48:02 -
VIENNA (AP) - The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe suspended talks on prolonging its presence in Georgia Thursday, but held out hope Russian resistance to a compromise would ease by a summer deadline.
The Vienna-based OSCE has to shut down its 16-year-old Georgia mission by June 30 after Moscow blocked the extension of its mandate late last year. A separate mandate for 20 unarmed military monitors currently operating in Georgia also expires on that date.
Greek Ambassador Mara Marinaki, whose country currently holds the OSCE's rotating chairmanship, described the suspension as a «temporary drawback.
«Nothing is final,» she told reporters.
Five months of informal talks were stymied Wednesday over Russia's refusal to endorse a Greek compromise plan. The 56-nation OSCE operates by consensus and so one nation can block action.
The crux of the disagreement is that Russia considers Georgia's breakaway region of South Ossetia an independent state and wants other OSCE members to treat it as such. South Ossetia was at the center of a brief war between Georgia and Russia in August and tensions remain.
Marinaki said the Greek proposal remained on the table but that talks would be put on hold until further notice.
Anvar Azimov, Moscow's permanent representative to the OSCE, said Moscow was not to blame for the impasse.
Russia «has consistently stood for continuation of the OSCE's work on the territory of Georgia and South Ossetia,» he was quoted as saying by the RIA-Novosti news agency.
Georgian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergo Kapanadze said the development «demonstrates the fact that Russia cannot meet its international obligations.
Kyle Scott, Washington's OSCE envoy, urged Moscow to reconsider «in the spirit of cooperation.
Associated Press writer Catrina Stewart contributed to this report from Tbilisi, Georgia.
Last modified: May 14, 2009 19:41h
Russia sent in troops to crush Georgia's move to retake its separatist South Ossetia region in a war last August, then rejected an extension of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe's 16-year-old monitoring mission in the former Soviet republic when it expired on Dec. 31. The military and civilian monitors face a June 30 deadline to pull out.
On Wednesday, Russia barred a revised monitoring proposal from OSCE chairman Greece by insisting on language driving home its view of South Ossetia as an "independent" state -- rejected by Georgia and not endorsed elsewhere in the 56-nation group.
U.S. and European Union officials regard an OSCE presence in Georgia as crucial to preventing further fighting between separatist and Georgian forces and mistreatment of civilians.
Greece's OSCE ambassador, Mara Marinaki, announced a suspension in five-month-old negotiations on a new OSCE presence in Georgia. But she said the current proposal remained on the table and she called for "strong political will" to accept it.
She made clear she would stick to an approach that omits mention of Georgia or South Ossetia and related political and geographic references -- skirting the hot-button issue of the separatist territory's status -- while stipulating free movement for monitors across the August ceasefire line.
"CRUCIAL" OSCE PRESENCE
"We need to review the results of our efforts to build the required consensus around the Greek proposal based on the 'status-neutral' formula that would allow the OSCE to continue its crucial work in Georgia," Marinaki said in a statement.
Marinaki told reporters later she regarded the break-off of talks to be temporary and an agreement would come if key parties were willing to "go the extra mile".
In Moscow, Interfax news agency quoted a Russian Foreign Ministry source as saying no final decision had been made and dialogue would go on but that Greece's plan "makes no sense".
"This plan is based on the premise that everything in the region remained the same after the Georgian aggression. But this plan won't work. Tskhinvali (South Ossetia's regional capital) will not let the observers enter its territory." Georgia's Foreign Ministry accused Russia of trying to force the OSCE out of the country to legalise an "illegal recognition of our occupied regions" and turn them into "non-transparent and unaccountable black holes, where ethnic cleansing is an ongoing practice and where human rights are violated on a daily basis".
U.S. OSCE envoy Kyle Scott urged Russia to rethink what he called its "excessive amendments" which he said offended almost all OSCE states seeking a "genuine compromise" on monitoring.
"We call one last time for (Russia) to reconsider ... in the spirit of cooperation to avoid the deterioration of a critical security architecture we have worked so hard over the years to build," Scott told an assembly of OSCE ambassadors.
Greece's solution would leave Russia's quest for broad recognition of pro-Moscow South Ossetia's "independence" to be addressed at "status" talks in Geneva, while accommodating the insistence of Georgia and its Western allies on Georgian territorial integrity and a single OSCE mission in the country.
But Russia on Wednesday answered the Greek draft proposal with its own version that crossed out references to "free and unimpeded contact and movement" across the truce line.
Any movement, it said, would be agreed with "relevant authorities", meaning the rebels and Russians, with separate monitor missions in South Ossetia and state-controlled Georgia.
