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HELSINKI: Finland on Thursday hosts a conference marking 50 years since the signing of the “Helsinki Final Act” on respecting borders and territorial integrity, principles that have come under assault following the war in Ukraine.

Keynote speakers for the conference include Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.

Zelensky had been invited to attend the conference but will give his address remotely, the Finnish foreign ministry told AFP. Guterres will also only speak via a video message.

Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said last week that Russia would be participating but would not be sending any high-level representatives to the meeting.

“Russia does not see the expediency of participating in the event at a high political level,” she told reporters, adding representatives would still “take part in the conversation.”

Notable guests include UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk, as well as Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiga, who arrived in Helsinki on Wednesday.

An opening speech is scheduled for 10:00 am (0700 GMT) by the Chairperson-in-Office of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe’s (OSCE), Finnish Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen.

On August 1, 1975, 50 years ago, the Eastern and Western blocs signed the Helsinki Final Act in the Finnish capital.

The historic agreement between 35 states, including the Soviet Union and the United States, led to the creation of the OSCE, which today brings together 57 countries.

Among the key principles enshrined in the treaty are state sovereignty, non-use of force, and above all, the inviolability of borders.

“The participating States regard as inviolable all one another’s frontiers as well as the frontiers of all States in Europe and therefore they will refrain now and in the future from assaulting these frontiers,” the text of the treaty reads.

These commitments have been gravely challenged since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, which has caused the most severe crisis in OSCE history.

Since then, Kyiv has unsuccessfully demanded that Russia be excluded from the international body.

However, in July 2024, Russian lawmakers earlier voted to suspend participation in the body’s parliamentary assembly, branding it anti-Russian and discriminatory, although the country is still listed as a member state on the organization’s official website.

While in Finland, Sybiga is also scheduled to hold bilateral talks with several Finnish officials, including Finnish President Alexander Stubb, and other high-level officials visiting the conference, according to the Ukrainian diplomacy.

Ukraine’s foreign ministry said in a statement Wednesday that “key topics” would include “synchronizing allied pressure on Moscow.”

Finland shut its 1,340-kilometer (830-mile) eastern border with Russia in mid-December 2023 after the arrival of around 1,000 migrants without visas.

Helsinki has claimed the surge was orchestrated by Russia — a charge the Kremlin has denied.

YANGON: Myanmar’s junta ended the country’s state of emergency on Thursday, ramping up preparations for a December election being boycotted by opposition groups and criticized by international monitors.

The military declared a state of emergency in February 2021 as it deposed the civilian government of democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi, sparking a many-sided civil war which has claimed thousands of lives.

The order gave junta chief Min Aung Hlaing supreme power over the legislature, executive and judiciary — but he has recently touted elections as an off-ramp to the conflict.

Opposition groups including ex-lawmakers ousted in the coup have pledged to snub the poll, which a UN expert last month dismissed as “a fraud” designed to legitimize the military’s continuing rule.

“The state of emergency is abolished today in order for the country to hold elections on the path to a multi-party democracy,” junta spokesman Zaw Min Tun said in a voice message shared with reporters.

“Elections will be held within six months,” he added.

Analysts predict Min Aung Hlaing will keep a role as either president or armed forces chief following the election and consolidate power in that office, thereby extending his tenure as de facto ruler.

“We have already passed the first chapter,” Min Aung Hlaing said in a speech in Naypyidaw reported in state newspaper The Global New Light of Myanmar on Thursday.

“Now, we are starting the second chapter,” he told members of the junta’s administration council at what the newspaper called an “honorary ceremony” for its members.

“The upcoming election will be held this December, and efforts will be made to enable all eligible voters to cast their ballots,” the newspaper reported, paraphrasing another part of his speech.

No exact date for the poll has yet been announced by the junta, but political parties are being registered while training sessions on electronic voting machines have already taken place.

On Wednesday, the military government said it enacted a new law dictating prison sentences up to 10 years for speech or protests aiming to “destroy a part of the electoral process.”

But a census held last year as preparation for the election estimated it failed to collect data from 19 million of the country’s 51 million people, provisional results said.

The results cited “significant security constraints” as one reason for the shortfall — giving a sign of how limited the reach of the election may be amid the civil war.

Analysts have predicted rebels will stage offensives around the election as a sign of their opposition.

But this month the junta begun offering cash rewards to those willing to lay down their arms and “return to the legal fold” ahead of the vote.