News and press releases

As part of its ongoing series to discuss Uzbekistan’s State Programme for the year 2020, the OSCE Project Co-Ordinator in Uzbekistan on 23 July 2020 co-organized a third online discussion, this time focused on strengthening the national Parliament, increasing the role of political parties, and reforming state and public governance...

TIRANA, 23 July 2020 – The OSCE Chairperson-in-Office, Prime Minister and Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs of Albania, Edi Rama, welcomed the agreement reached yesterday by the Trilateral Contact Group, with the participation of representatives of certain areas of Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Ukraine, regarding additional measures to strengthen the ceasefire, aiming to ensure compliance with a comprehensive, sustainable and unlimited ceasefire. The agreement is due to come into force from 27 July 2020 until the comprehensive settlement of the conflict...

VIENNA / KYIV, 22 July 2020 – Ukraine’s Defence Minister Andrii Taran today addressed the last meeting of the OSCE Forum for Security Co-operation (FSC) under the country’s Chair. Addressing the meeting remotely from Kyiv, he said Ukraine had chaired this decision-making body during “unprecedented circumstances” of the COVID-19 pandemic crisis and “ongoing aggression on its territorial integrity and sovereignty"...

VIENNA, 20 July 2020 – Identifying effective ways to improve the prosecution of human traffickers is the focus of the 20th high-level OSCE Alliance Conference against Trafficking in Persons, which opened today in Vienna...

TIRANA / VIENNA, 17 July 2020 – In a letter to the OSCE’s 57 participating States today, Albania’s OSCE Chairmanship announced that the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office Edi Rama has taken prompt action to ensure the Organization’s operational continuity in light of the imminent vacancies of the OSCE Secretary General and the Heads of Institutions roles...

WARSAW, 17 July 2020 – The COVID-19 pandemic has been a formative experience for all humanity and a health emergency of global proportions, presenting a huge challenge to national leaders, health systems, and citizens. The findings of a new report by the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) shows that it has also been a test to our democracies and the respect for human rights to which countries across the OSCE committed many years ago.

COPENHAGEN, 16 July 2020 – OSCE Parliamentary Assembly President George Tsereteli has closely followed the situation along the border of Azerbaijan and Armenia and has been in contact this week with the countries’ OSCE PA delegations and relevant international actors. Today, he urged both sides to urgently de-escalate and to engage in “substantive negotiations"...