News and press releases

Bern, July 24, 2014 – Noting today’s consensus decision of the OSCE Permanent Council to deploy an Observer Mission to two checkpoints of Donetsk and Gukovo on the Russian-Ukrainian border, the Chairperson-in-Office and Swiss Foreign Minister, Didier Burkhalter, stressed the confidence-building character of this measure.

OSCE Secretary General Lamberto Zannier visited Kyiv from 21 to 23 July 2014. He met with the head of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) to Ukraine Ambassador Ertugrul Apakan and his staff to discuss their work in light of recent developments in the east of Ukraine. Zannier, on behalf of the Organization and its participating States, thanked the SMM staff for their hard work and courage displayed in increasingly difficult circumstances...

ASHGABAT, 24 July 2014 – The management and safe storage of small arms and light weapons (SALW) and conventional ammunition was the focus of an OSCE-supported roundtable discussion for nineteen officials from Turkmenistan’s Defence Ministry, which concluded in Ashgabat today...

The remains of many of the Malaysia Airlines MH17 Flight victims arrived in Kharkiv, from where they will be transported to the Netherlands. The Ukrainian army re-took two towns in the north of the Luhansk region. The SMM discovered bodies in a building vacated by irregular armed forces in one of the towns, namely, Severodonetsk.

VIENNA, July 23, 2014 – The Co-Chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group (Ambassadors Igor Popov of the Russian Federation, James Warlick of the United States of America, and Pierre Andrieu of France) met separately with the Foreign Minister of Armenia, Edward Nalbandian, and the Foreign Minister of Azerbaijan, Elmar Mammadyarov, on July 22 in Brussels. The Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office, Ambassador Andrzej Kasprzyk, also participated in the meetings...

VIENNA, 23 July 2014 – OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media Dunja Mijatović today condemned the abduction of freelance journalist Anton Skiba in Donetsk and called for his immediate release...

VIENNA, 23 July 2014 – OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media Dunja Mijatović today welcomed yesterday’s release of Alexander Sodiqov, a blogger and commentator on Tajik and Central Asian politics, from a pre-trial detention centre in Dushanbe and expressed hope that the criminal charges brought against him would be dropped altogether...

DUSHANBE, 23 July 2014 – A five-day OSCE-supported study visit to Estonia for participants from Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan on good practices in border demarcation and delimitation concluded today...

DUSHANBE, 23 July 2014 – A three-day workshop for participants from Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan on simplifying and harmonizing procedures for international trade concluded at the OSCE Border Management Staff College in Dushanbe today...

WASHINGTON D.C., 22 July, 2014- With reference to demonstrations in many places in the OSCE area, sparked recently by tensions in the Middle East, and in a few cases with manifestations of intolerance, especially of anti-Semitic rhetoric and acts, Rabbi Andrew Baker, Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office on Combating Anti-Semitism, underlined the importance of the Berlin Declaration. This declaration, adopted ten years ago by the participating States of the OSCE, reads: “[We] declare unambiguously that international developments or political issues, including those in Israel or elsewhere in the Middle East never justify anti-Semitism.”

Dutch forensics experts – accompanying the SMM – assessed the storage facilities for bodies on board the train in Torez railway station for victims of the Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 crash as “good”. People continue to leave Luhansk city...

VIENNA, 22 July 2014 – OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media Dunja Mijatović today expressed concern about a court ruling in Armenia that forces media outlets to disclose their sources of information...

VIENNA, 22 July 2014 – OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media Dunja Mijatović today again called on Tajikstan’s authorities to ensure its citizens’ unrestricted access to the Internet, this time following the blocking of access to Odnoklassniki, one of the most popular social platforms in the country with more than 300,000 users...

KYIV, 22 July 2014- The Trilateral Contact Group, consisting of senior representatives of Ukraine, the Russian Federation and the OSCE Chairperson-in Office, (President Kuchma, Ambassador Zurabov, Ambassador Tagliavini respectively), met on 22 July 2014 and held another round of video consultations with representatives of separatists operating in eastern Ukraine.

Dutch forensics experts – accompanying the SMM – assessed the storage conditions for bodies on board the train at Torez railway station as good. At the main crash site, all bodies had been removed. The recovery process was assessed by the Dutch forensics experts as good...

ASHGABAT, 22 July 2014 – An OSCE-supported seminar on confidence- and security- building measures (CSBMs) and the implementation of the related OSCE documents opened in Ashgabat today...

BERN, 22 July 2014- After the decision of the OSCE Permanent Council, upon request by the Ukrainian government, to extend the mandate of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) to Ukraine for a further six months, the Chairperson-in-Office and Swiss Foreign Minister, Didier Burkhalter, welcomed that the SMM will be able to continue to play its crucial role in assisting Ukraine in de-escalating measures...

A two-day training seminar aimed at enhancing prosecutors’ knowledge and skills in dealing with, and resolving disputes was held on 21 and 22 July 2014 in Astana...

The SMM was initially given only partial access to the Malaysia Airlines MH17 crash site. It was given full access on 20 July. Luhansk city was shelled...

An OSCE-supported summer school held from 10 to 20 July 2014 brought together 70 young students from both banks of the Dniester/Nistru River in the riverside town of Molovata Noua...

VIENNA, 21 July 2014 – OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media Dunja Mijatović today called on Russian authorities to immediately release Yevgeny Agarkov, a journalist with the Ukrainian 2+2 television channel...

The SMM obtained very limited access to the crash site of Malaysia Airlines MH17, which came down on 17 July near Hrabove (79 km east of Donetsk). There were dead bodies at the scene, marked, but exposed to the elements. No process of debris collection was observed. Some of the ’Donetsk People’s Republic’s‘ guards were visibly intoxicated and aggressive.

VIENNA, 18 July 2014 – Representatives of the OSCE’s 57 participating States at the Permanent Council today adopted a declaration on the tragic crash of the Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 in Ukraine...

On 15-18 July 2014, the OSCE Presence in Albania trained 30 probation officers from across the country as well as members of the General Directorate of the Probation Service. The training introduced the newly-developed Offender Assessment System for Juveniles and Young Adults (OASJ) and effective approaches to working with juvenile offenders. This assessment and related user manual was developed by a working group chaired by the Presence...

The SMM is currently making its way to the crash site in the Donetsk region, where a civilian aircraft came down, leading to the deaths of 298 people on 17 July. The SMM intends to monitor the situation at the scene and report accordingly...

DUSHANBE, 18 July 2014 – Strategies and approaches to prevent and combat corruption were in focus at a five-day workshop that concluded at the OSCE Border Management Staff College in Dushanbe today...

YEREVAN, 18 July 2014 – Ensuring better co-ordination and collaboration among different state and non-state agencies dealing with juvenile offenders was the main objective of an OSCE-supported roundtable discussion held today in Yerevan...

COPENHAGEN, 18 July 2014 – OSCE Parliamentary Assembly President Ilkka Kanerva (MP, Finland) issued the following statement today on the crash of Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 over eastern Ukraine:

YEREVAN, 18 July 2014 – In an effort to support Armenia in meeting its commitments within the Open Governance Partnership (OGP) Initiative, the OSCE Office in Yerevan hosted a round table discussion today in Yerevan...

Bern, July 17, 2014- Didier Burkhalter, OSCE Chairperson-in-Office and Swiss Foreign Minister, expressed his sincere condolences to the families of the many victims of the shocking crash of the Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17 over Ukrainian territory. He said that the circumstances which led to this tragedy had to be investigated in a thorough and impartial manner and commended Ukraine’s readiness to involve international expertise.

The Trilateral Contact Group of senior representatives of Ukraine, the Russian Federation and the OSCE convened in Kiev on July 17, 2014.

Tensions remained in parts of Donbas. Other areas of Ukraine remained calm. Protesters in front of the Consulate General of the Russian Federation in Lviv demanded the release of a Ukrainian military pilot, who was abducted by armed groups operating in Donbas and is now reportedly in custody in Russia...

PODGORICA, 17 July 2014 – OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media Dunja Mijatović today welcomed the readiness of the media community in Montenegro to launch a process to improve media self-regulation in the country and to start the process of confidence-building between media actors...

The OSCE Centre in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan’s Interior Ministry and the Lithuanian Criminal Police Office conducted on 15 and 16 July 2014 a training seminar for law enforcement bodies on effective measures in protecting victims and witnesses of organized and serious crimes...

Legal amendments to prevent the governing party from having an undue campaign advantage and periodic independent reviews of constituency boundaries are among the main recommendations made in the final report by the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) on the 6 April 2014 parliamentary elections in Hungary.

ISSYK-KUL, Kyrgyzstan, 17 July 2014 – The OSCE Police Matters Programme in co-operation with the Interior Ministry today launched a two-day training course in Issyk-Kul on gender-sensitive approaches to combatting domestic violence for 25 newly-hired neighborhood inspectors from the Chui, Naryn, Talas and Issyk-Kul regions of Kyrgyzstan...

Yurii Baulin, Chairperson of Ukraine’s Constitutional Court and Ambassador Madina Jarbussynova, OSCE Project Co-ordinator in Ukraine signed a Memorandum on Co-operation to streamline future joint efforts to strengthen the rule of law, democratic development, promote international standards in the field of human rights and fundamental freedoms. The signing ceremony took place in Kyiv on 16 July 2014...

Tensions remained in parts of Donbas. The SMM began facilitating an exchange between the Ukrainian army and armed supporters of the so-called ‘Luhansk People’s Republic’ (LPR) to create two local evacuation corridors for wounded Ukrainian soldiers and ‘LPR’ combatants. The situation was calm elsewhere across the country. There was a false bomb alert in Kyiv in the office of a popular TV channel...

TIRANA, 16 July 2014- Bledar Çuçi, the Minister of State for Local Issues, who also serves as Albania’s National Co-ordinator on Anti-corruption, and the OSCE Presence in Albania today in Tirana presented the draft Anti-corruption Action Plan 2014-2017. The Action Plan was put together with the support and co-operation of the OSCE Presence in Albania...

Greater efforts to ensure a separation between party and state activities, as well as to investigate allegations of intimidation were among the recommendations contained in the final report by the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) on the presidential and early parliamentary elections in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.

VIENNA, 16 July 2014 – OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media Dunja Mijatović today regretted the ruling by the appeals court in Belgrade against the media outlet B92 for defamation in connection with reporting involving a former Serbian official...

The Trilateral Contact Group of senior representatives of Ukraine, the Russian Federation and the OSCE met in Kiev on July 15, 2014.

Tension remained in parts of Donbas. The situation was calm elsewhere across the country. In Kharkiv, on the night of 12-13 July, the monument of independence on the Constitution Square was vandalized with red paint by unknown perpetrators, and later during the day cleaned up by city employees. Police officers were working on site in the morning. This is the fourth incident of this kind in Kharkiv.

KYIV, 15 July 2014 – Electoral reform in Ukraine and follow-up to recommendations made in the final report of the election observation mission sent by the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) for the 2014 early presidential election were the focus of a roundtable event in Kyiv today...

ASHGABAT, 15 July 2014 – Five senior officials from the Defence Ministry of Turkmenistan discussed practices of safe storage of small arms and light weapons and conventional ammunition during an OSCE-supported study visit to Moldova that concluded in Chisinau today...

VIENNA, 15 July 2014 – Addressing crises and conflicts in the OSCE region, advancing regional co-operation with a special focus on Western Balkans, stepping up work on youth and security and promoting water governance are among the priorities of the incoming Serbian Chairmanship in 2015, First Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of Serbia Ivica Dačić told OSCE participating States today...

BERN, 14 July 2014- In telephone conversations with the Ukrainian and the Russian Foreign Ministers today, the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office and Swiss Foreign Minister; Didier Burkhalter, reiterated the OSCE’s support in various ongoing de-escalation efforts.

The situation in the central-southern part of the Luhansk region and the central part of the Donetsk region remained volatile. There were reports of heavy fighting in and around Luhansk city. Other parts of the country remained calm.

The Office of the Special Representative and Co-ordinator for Combating Trafficking in Human Beings, in a report published today, praised the Italian Government for the steps it has taken to eliminate modern-day slavery following a two part country visit in June and July of 2013...

Law enforcement agencies need to focus on the financial proceeds of human trafficking in order to more effectively penalize the criminals who organize modern-day slavery networks, concludes a new publication launched by the OSCE today...