Pope marks 50th anniversary of Helsinki Accords


By NICOLE WINFIELD

ROME (AP) — Pope Leo XIV on Wednesday called for a renewed commitment to diplomacy to resolve conflicts as he marked the 50th anniversary of the Helsinki Accords, the landmark Cold War-era agreement that ushered in a new era of security and human rights.

At the end of his general audience, history’s first American pope said that Aug. 1 marks the anniversary of the conclusion of the 35-nation summit in Finland that resulted in the Helsinki Final Act, which years later helped give birth to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

Renewing his appeal for peace in the world, Leo said: “Today, more than ever, it is imperative to cherish the spirit of Helsinki, persevere in dialogue, strengthen cooperation and make diplomacy the preferred way to prevent and resolve conflicts.”

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Pope Leo XIV holds his weekly general audience in St. Peter’s Square, at the Vatican, Wednesday, July 30, 2025. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

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At the height of the Cold War detente in the 1970s, Finnish President Urho Kekkonen hosted a U.S.-Soviet summit where U.S. President Gerald Ford, Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev and others signed a watershed commitment to peace, East-West contacts, European security and human rights.

Leo said the agreement had “inaugurated a new geopolitical season, favoring a rapprochement between East and West. It marked a renewed interest in human rights with particular attention to religious freedom, considered one of the fundamentals of the nascent architecture of cooperation from Vancouver to Vladivostok.”



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