Dayton Peace Agreement forsees important OSCE role

VIENNA, 23 November 1995 - The Dayton Peace Agreement forsees important roles for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in supervising the election process, in monitoring human rights and assist with negotiations on confidence building measures and arms control.

The Agreement calls upon the OSCE to supervise the preparation and conduct of free elections and to head an electoral commission comprising international experts and representatives from both entities of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The Agreement requests the OSCE to appoint an Ombudsman to investigate human rights violations, issue findings, and bring proceedings before a newly created Human Rights Chamber. The OSCE will also play an important role in monitoring human rights.

Further, the Agreement obligates the parties to begin negotiations within seven days, under OSCE auspicies, to agree on a set of confidence-building measures (restrictions on military deployments and exercises, notification of military activities, exchange of data) to be applied within 45 days. The Agreement also calls on the OSCE to assist the parties with arms control negotiations and the implementation and verification of resulting agreements. The negotiations on an arms control mechanism that would set numerical limits within 180 days on holdings of tanks, armored combat vehicles, combat aircraft and attack helicopters are to begin within 30 days under OSCE auspicies.

The OSCE, the Chairman-in-Office and the OSCE bodies in Vienna have immediately started intensive consultations on the follow-up to the Dayton Agreement. The OSCE Chairman-in-Office, Hungarian Foreign Minister Lászlo Kovács, has asked the Chairman of the the OSCE Permanent Council, Ambassador Márton Krasznai, the OSCE Secretary General, Dr. Wilhelm Höynck, and representatives of some OSCE participating States to take exploratory trips to the region. As a first step, they will travel to Zagreb and Sarajevo on 23-25 November. Representatives from the OSCE participating States who will take part in the trip are: Ambassador Peter Arbenz (Switzerland); Hasan Aygün (Turkey); Ambassador Robert Frowick (USA); Alfredo Matacotta (Italy); Ambassador Robin O'Neill (United Kingdom); and Vladimir Tchijov (Russian Federation).

The exploratory talks will focus, in particular, on a follow-up on the Dayton Agreement request to the OSCE to supervise the preparation and conduct of free elections.