Munich Security Conference to focus on global threats

By Ayhan Simsek

BERLIN (AA) - This year’s Munich Security Conference will focus on U.S.-Russia tensions, transatlantic relations and the future of European Union, its chairman Wolfgang Ischinger said on Thursday.

The German diplomat, who is heading the world’s biggest security conference, held a news conference in Berlin for foreign journalists.

“We are seriously concerned about the future of liberal international order,” he said, adding that new challenges, such as the strengthening of nationalist and xenophobic centrifugal forces, were threatening the rules-based international order.

Ischinger said, more than 100 leading figures, including presidents, prime ministers and cabinet ministers from all over the world, will attend the Munich Security Conference, to be held in Munich on Feb 15-17.

He expressed hope that the conference would also give an opportunity for senior U.S. and Russian officials to hold talks on the future of Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF).

But, he acknowledged that developments so far do not give much hope for an agreement that could preserve the INF treaty.

Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron were among the leaders who confirmed their attendance and were expected to present their vision on the future of European Union.