peace and conflict resolution. The winners of the Ewald von Kleist Award were in 2009 Dr Henry Kissinger and in 2010 Javier Solana de Madariaga. Also in 2009, the MSC initiated a new event format, called MSC Core Group Meeting. This new and smaller-scale event was introduced in addition to the annual main, Munich-based meeting of the Munich Security Conference. The idea is to invite a number of distinguished and high-ranking participants to changing capitals and give them the opportunity to confidentially discuss current international security policy issues and develop sustainable solutions. Meetings took place 2009 in Washington D.C., 2010 in Moscow and 2011 in Beijing. 2011 conference The 47th Munich Security Conference was held from 4 to 6 February 2011 and again assembled top-level decision makers from all over the world, including UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, British Prime Minister David Cameron U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov whilst Belarus was excluded from the circle of attendees because of the country's human rights situation. In 2011, two special features marked the growing role of the Munich Security Conference as a centre of attention of international security policy: European Union's High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Catherine Ashton called for the Quartet on the Middle East, consisting of the EU, Russia, the United States and the UN, to meet within the setting of the 2011 Munich Security Conference; and during a ceremony on the sidelines of the conference, the New START Treaty (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) entered into force when Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton exchanged the instruments of ratification. 2012 conference The 48th Munich Security Conference was held from 2 to 5 February 2012. 2013 conference The 49th Munich Security Conference was held from 1 to 3 February 2013. The conference focused on the European debt crisis, transatlantic relations, the crisis regions of Mali and the Middle East, as well as energy security and cyber terrorism. 2014 conference The 50th Munich Security Conference was held from 31 January to 2 February 2014. The conference focused on the Euromaidan, New security risks, Loss of importance for Europe, NSA-Affair and New order in former Yugoslavia, as well as Middle east, and Iran's nuclear programme. 2015 conference The 51st Munich Security Conference was held from 6 to 8 February