Security Council
Organization for Security and Co–operation in Europe (OSCE) - Security Council VTC Briefing
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While the crisis in Ukraine remains Europe’s most serious security challenge, the COVID-19 pandemic — which was declared as such a year ago this month — has occasioned worrying setbacks for democracy and human rights in the region which cannot go ignored, the Chairperson-in-Office of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) said today, during a videoconference meeting of the Security Council.
Briefing members, Ann Linde, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Sweden, emphasized the essential need for the United Nations and the 57-member OSCE — the world’s largest regional security organization — to cooperate closely in a Europe that requires more, not fewer, common solutions to tough challenges, ranging from long-standing inter-State rivalries to climate change and cyber security.
“One of my main priorities as Chairperson-in-Office,” she said, ”will be to seek continued engagement at the highest levels towards sustainable solutions to the crises and conflicts in the [European] region, in line with international law and with full respect for the OSCE principles and commitments.”
She said her first priority is to focus on the basic commitments and principles upon which the Vienna-based OCSE is founded — the Helsinki Final Act and the Charter of Paris for a New Europe. During its turn at the helm, Sweden also aims to strengthen the organization’s unique concept of security, which makes a clear link between security and respect for human rights, democracy and the rule of law, she stressed.
Describing the seven-year-old crisis in Ukraine as “the most serious challenge to the European security order”, she called for intensified efforts to resolve the conflict — including by the Normandy Group and the Trilateral Contact Group — to fully implement the Minsk Agreements and a sustainable political solution, in accordance with OSCE commitments and principles. She underlined that the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission must be able to carry out its essential work unimpeded throughout Ukraine and that crossing points along the line of contact in the east must be reopened.
She went on to discuss the situations in Georgia — saying the European Union, the OSCE and the United Nations should step up their joint confidence-building measures there — and Nagorno-Karabakh, where, she stressed, a ceasefire that began in November 2020 must be followed by renewed efforts for a lasting peace deal.
Echoing the Secretary-General’s 23 March 2020 call for a global ceasefire to combat COVID-19 as it spread across the globe, she said the pandemic has added a new layer of challenges by placing strains on open societies, pointing out: “During the last year, we have seen a backsliding of democracy and respect for human rights in the OSCE region, as we have seen elsewhere.” During its year-long turn at the helm of the OSCE, Sweden will emphasize the right to freedom of expression and the freedom of media as well as other democratic principles which its participating States are committed to respect, she pledged.
In the ensuing discussion, delegates reiterated their support for the United Nations working more closely with the OSCE and other regional and subregional organizations. They also welcomed the focus of the Chairperson-in-Office on the women, peace and security agenda and reasserted their respective positions on Ukraine and other hotspot issues on the OSCE’s agenda.
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