News and press releases

VIENNA, 1 February 2019 – Although there was a decrease in the level of violence following a recommitment to the ceasefire on the occasion of the New Year/Christmas festivities, an increase in ceasefire violations in recent weeks has again brought more suffering to civilians living along the contact line, the Chief Monitor of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine (SMM), Ertugrul Apakan, said in his address to the OSCE Permanent Council today in Vienna...

ATHENS, 1 February 2019 – A two-day regional conference on preventing trafficking in human beings through government procurement practices and measures, with a focus on the Balkan region, concluded yesterday in Athens, Greece...

PRISTINA, 1 February 2019 – The OSCE Parliamentary Assembly encourages all channels of dialogue, including parliamentary diplomacy, as a means to support and improve reconciliation and co-operation in the South East European region, British parliamentarian Mark Pritchard emphasized today in a visit to Pristina, Mitrovica and Gracanica...

Compared with the previous reporting period, the SMM recorded fewer ceasefire violations in Donetsk region and more in Luhansk region. The SMM observed fresh damage from shelling at the checkpoint of the armed formations on the southern edge of the Zolote disengagement area, as well as military presence in the Zolote disengagement area. The Mission saw weapons in violation of the withdrawal lines on both sides of the contact line; it also saw a high number of weapons, including about 60 tanks, beyond withdrawal lines but outside designated storage sites in non-government-controlled areas. It continued to observe long queues of civilians travelling across the contact line near Stanytsia Luhanska. The SMM facilitated and monitored adherence to the ceasefire to facilitate repairs to and operations of essential civilian infrastructure in Donetsk and Luhansk regions. Restrictions of the Mission’s access continued in all three disengagement areas and elsewhere.* The SMM observed that the wooden boxes at the Myronivskyi reservoir had been removed...

CHISINAU, 31 January 2019 – The Head of the OSCE Mission to Moldova, Claus Neukirch, today expressed his concern that recent developments with regard to the village of Varnita and the opening of a Transdniestrian socio-cultural centre in Moscow could undermine the trust and confidence built over the past years in the Transdniestrian settlement process...

TIRANA, 31 January 2019- Transparency International published the results of its Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) 2018 ranking Albania at place 99 among the 180 countries and territories included in the index.

The OSCE Programme Office in Dushanbe donated forensic training equipment to the Forensics Department and Academy of Tajikistan’s Interior Ministry on 30 January 2019 in Dushanbe. The donated equipment includes six compact bullet catchers, four metal hardness testers, four laboratory scales, one microscope, thirty handbooks on forensic topics, five desktops, one projector with screen, and two digital video cameras.