Resumption of work of Minsk OSCE office is not under discussion now

MFA press secretary Dzmitry Mironchyk informed about it when talking with journalists.

OSCE chairperson Ivica Dačić did not discuss the possibility of resumption of the OSCE office work in Minsk during his visit to Belarus, claimed MFA press secretary Dzmitry Mironchyk in the talk with journalists, Euroradio reports.

Let us recall that the Belarusian authorities decided to close the OSCE office at the end of December 2011. The decision was explained by “the absence of objective reasons to keep the OSCE mission in Belarus”. The OSCE office officially stopped its work in Minsk on March 31, 2011.

As “EuroBelarus” Information Service has already written, at the meeting with the OSCE Acting Chairman, first deputy PM, Serbian Minister of Foreign Affairs Ivica Dačić on July 21 in Minsk Aliaksandr Lukashenka stated that “OSCE could play a bigger role” in regulation of the Ukrainian conflict. Before that at the meeting with OSCE Secretary General Zannier Lukashenka said the attitude towards the OSCE observers at the forthcoming presidential elections in Belarus that are to take place on October 11 would be the most loyal: "Please, think that we have invited all your representatives who you believe should come to observe the election process".

When answering the question of “EuroBelarus” Information Service about the importance of the OSCE’s visit to Minsk, Andrei Yahorau, chair of the Coordinating Committee of the Eastern Partnership Civil Society Forum, the Director of the Center for European Transformation said that we should “consider it in the general logics of Belarus-West contacts development”. “Now the renovation of Belarus’ dialog with the OSCE is related to the forthcoming elections; so the Belarusan authorities are interested in the most positive assessments possible”, he said.