OSCE police monitoring group to cease operations in Danube Region

ZAGREB, 21 September 2000 - The OSCE Permanent Council in Vienna has decided that the OSCE Police Monitoring Group in the Danube Region will cease operations as a distinct unit of the OSCE Mission to Croatia, commencing 31 October 2000. This decision was taken with the knowledge that the security situation in the Danube Region has remained stable and the performance of the local police has shown steady improvement in the last few months.

The OSCE will, however, continue with police monitoring and with its assessment of the security situation in the Danube Region as well as in other war-affected areas, after the closure of the Police Monitoring Group. The Mission encourages the local population to continue to report incidents to the local police authorities.

The OSCE Mission to Croatia notes that several years of international police monitoring in Eastern Slavonia have helped instill more professionalism in the local police and that the new government has initiated useful changes in the police administrations.

The Police Monitoring Group was deployed to the Danube Region in October 1998, when the OSCE assumed responsibility for monitoring the performance of the Croatian Police in the Danube Region from the United Nations Police Support Group.

For more information, please contact Alessandro Fracassetti, spokesperson, OSCE Mission to Croatia, Florijana Andraseca 14, 10 000 Zagreb, Croatia, tel.: +385.1.3096 620; fax: 3096 297; e-mail Alessandro.Fracassetti@oscecro.org; website http:// www.osce.org/croatia