50th Munich Security Conference

At the Munich Security Conference, US Secretary of State John Kerry promised the Ukrainian opposition support from the West.

[9] The Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov accused Western countries of assisting the violent uprising in Ukraine which was getting out of control.

NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, on the other hand, accused Russia of violating Ukraine's rights to a free choice of alliances.

[16] The panel discussion on the history of the Security Conference to mark the 50th anniversary had attendances from former German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt and former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who both had participated in the first Internationale Wehrkundebegegnung in 1963.

[19] Henry Kissinger also shared the assessment of an increasingly complex global security situation, which hampered the development of "coherent strategies".

Recalling the situation in Afghanistan and Iraq, Kissinger warned however to be cautious that the decisions of military intervention should not be influenced by a "moment of rage", if willingness is not given to such wars to "endure to the end".

"[20] David Miliband described a decline of classical foreign policy and attributed this to the fact that the electorate increasingly placed regional and national issues at the centre of importance.

[27][28] US Senator John McCain added in relation to the NSA spying on allies as a 'credibility problem', which the American government had to deal with in order to regain lost trust.

The German MEP Elmar Brok predicted a defeat in the vote on the TTIP agreement in the European Parliament in the event that an examination and reappraisal of the NSA's activities would fail.

[32] During the conference, the two Prime Ministers from Serbia and Kosovo, Ivica Dačić and Hashim Thaçi, came together[33] and discussed the rapprochement between the two countries, which in 2013 had led to the signing of the normalization Agreement, under the moderation of Catherine Ashton, High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy.

[35] The conference also hosted a meeting of the Middle East Quartet in which EU Representative Ashton put economic aid for Israelis and Palestinians on the table if both parties consented to a peace agreement.

Despite his announcement of follow-up negotiations, designated UN special envoy Lakhdar Brahimi stated that the international peace efforts in Syria had failed.

[40] The Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif echoed the call of his country for a ceasefire in Syria, referring to the difficulties of monitoring such actions.

[45] Israeli defense minister Moshe Ya'alon warned following the debate against too much optimism and stated that Iran will continue to develop its nuclear program throughout the course of the current negotiations.

[46] The fact that Ya'alon and the Israeli Ambassador to the UN, Ron Prosor, were among the audience during the appearance of the Iranian foreign minister was interpreted as a public gesture of rapprochement to Iran.