OSCE PA Annual Session: Azerbaijani President, OSCE Chair, Russian Duma Chair, Ukrainian Rada Deputy Chair to feature on opening day

BAKU, 26 June 2014 – The OSCE Parliamentary Assembly’s most important annual gathering begins on Saturday, 28 June in Baku with addresses by senior governmental and parliamentary leaders at the center of some of the international community’s most pressing security issues.

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, Swiss President and OSCE Chairperson-in-Office Didier Burkhalter, Russian State Duma Chair Sergey Naryshkin and Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada Deputy Chair Ruslan Koshulynskyi are all scheduled to speak at opening-day plenaries at the OSCE PA’s 23rd Annual Session.

All speeches will be live-streamed on the OSCE PA homepage, www.oscepa.org. For the full schedule, click here.

Their remarks, along with those of other notable speakers, will set the stage for five days of meetings, debates and decision-making by nearly 300 parliamentarians from across the OSCE area.

This year’s Annual Session will also feature a special debate on “The Rise of Extremism, Radicalism and Xenophobia: Challenges for the OSCE Region” (Sunday, 29 June at 9:30 GMT), as well as a debate on the situation in Ukraine (Tuesday, 1 July at 10:00 GMT).

“Thanks in large part to the Azerbaijani Parliament’s substantial efforts, this year’s Annual Session is sure to be one of the most interesting and eventful in the history of our Assembly,” said OSCE PA Secretary General Spencer Oliver.

“We expect frank discussions, dynamic debates and competitive elections for the President of the Assembly and other offices,” Oliver added.

The Assembly will hold elections to choose its President, three Vice-Presidents and several key committee officers in Baku.

The Session will culminate in the adoption of the Baku Declaration, which will contain wide-ranging policy recommendations for the OSCE and its 57 participating States in the fields of political affairs and security, economics, the environment and human rights.

The many topics that the Declaration is expected to address include: the ongoing crisis in Ukraine, confidence-building in the military sphere, democratic control of countries' armed forces, cyber threats, climate change, global financial health, political prisoners, migration and refugees and efforts to combat torture.

The full text of draft resolutions and supplementary items, are available here.

Follow news from the Session on Twitter using the hashtag #BakuAS.

This is a press release issued by the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly. The views expressed in this press release do not necessarily reflect those of the OSCE Chairmanship, nor of all OSCE participating States.

The OSCE Parliamentary Assembly is comprised of 323 parliamentarians from 56 countries spanning, Europe, Central Asia and North America. The Assembly provides a forum for parliamentary diplomacy, monitors elections, and strengthens international cooperation to uphold commitments on political, security, economic, environmental and human rights issues.