We look forward too to the next Review Meeting in Helsinki and other follow-up meetings which should keep up the pressure for change. We have agreed here that similar conditions of openness and access should apply to all those meetings. My Government will certainly ensure such conditions for the Information Forum which we are to host in London.
Such meetings, so long as they are seen as useful and relevant, are the engine by which trust is established, human rights consolidated and freedom extended.
The right to live in peace and security is the most basic human right of all. We have not ignored that here. Far from that. We have indeed opened the way to new talks on conventional armed forces and on further confidence-building measures. At the Conference on Disarmament in Stockholm we broke new ground by agreeing for the first time in any security negotiation to enforce and accept intrusive measures of verification.
We are now ready to tackle the problem of imbalances in conventional forces which has threatened the stability and security of our continent for 40 years. This new venture for peace will be of fundamental importance for the future of us all. We shall be back here in Vienna to launch the negotiation in two months' time. These talks will be crucial for arms control. They depend upon the trust created by this meeting. They will only succeed if that trust is sustained.
We can be satisfied, Mr. Chairman, with the result of our work here. It has been long, perhaps too long, in coming. I pay tribute to the sustained effort of all those delegations which have laboured constructively on the concluding document. Yours has not been an easy task.
As a result of your efforts, many thousands of lives will be improved. I hope that prisons and courtrooms will be emptied of people who are there only because of their political or religious belief. I hope that more divided families will be reunited. I hope that more people from our countries will meet each other more easily, establish new friendships or do business. I hope that more people will take a fuller, more active and better informed part in their societies.
We are following in a long and honourable tradition. Conferences like this one do not in themselves bring about change. Action is the responsibility of governments and peoples. But we have set out guidelines to be followed. We have placed another marker on the road for those who will follow us.
The international response to the tragedy of Armenia has shown that there are reservoirs of humanity and goodwill still untapped to help us along the way.
We must continue to work patiently and with determination to ensure that history does not record the Helsinki series of meetings as a footnote. It must stand instead as a unique and sustained enterprise, an effort in co-operation that helped to change the face of Europe.
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