The OSCE is sometimes a certain cudgel in someone's hands during a state's election campaign. This was announced by the Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko at an OSCE summit in Astana on December 2. "Much has been said about human rights. If we talk on this subject, we must talk seriously. Election is the major issue for the OSCE," the president said.
According to Alexander Lukashenko, «unfortunately, we lack standards of elections, the OSCE representatives and officials expect to see.» «But they are constantly referring to these standards. So now we’ve come to the point of developing election standards to be universal,» BelTA quoted the Belarusian leader.
President of Belarus also believes that the principles of supervising the election standards’ application should be common and invited the OSCE to work on their approval. «A number of countries have already developed certain suggestions on this subject,» the Belarusian leader said.
Alexander Lukashenko also expressed the opinion that the situation, regarding freedom of movement, had significantly deteriorated for the past 11 years, since the visa obtaining procedures humiliate human dignity nowadays.
«Timely in Helsinki and Madrid, we all voluntarily and quite unambiguously undertook to facilitate interpersonal communication and freedom of movement. However, the situation is now much worse than 11 years ago.
Bureaucratic, and sometimes openly degrading procedures for obtaining visas, as well as their disproportionate costs are a significant obstacle to free movement and contacts between the citizens of our countries, contacts,o much contributing to the growth of trust and mutual understanding,» Alexander Lukashenko said.
Belarus is For Creating Unified Security System under OSCE Responsibility, Lukashenko
All OSCE summits were taking «good solution», but «unfortunately, there is nothing to include into the asset of this work,» Alexander Lukashenko noted as well.
Belarusian President recalled that global changes had taken place all over the world for 11 years after the Istanbul summit. «People have faced a huge number of new challenges and threats, and geopolitical configuration in Europe has got a completely different look,» the Belarusian leader said.
«I’ve been participating in the OSCE summit for the third time, Alexander Lukashenko continued. — We’ve previously taken good decisions, hope we’ll do so again. And no matter how much we talk about the importance of our work, there’s, unfortunately, nothing to include in its asset today. It is hardly necessary to say at this stage who is to blame. One needs to say what to do.»
The politician said that the creation of a strong pan-European architecture of security and stability on the basis of broad consensus, true solidarity, partnership and mutual respect meets common interests. In addition, Alexander Lukashenko believes that it’s necessary to modernize the OSCE in order to achieve this goal. «To cope with this task, the organization itself needs a major upgrade,» President of Belarus said.
It’s Important to Correct the OSCE Functional and Geographic Imbalances, Lukashenko
«We are convinced of the need of Charter and turning the OSCE into a fully fledged international organization. Otherwise, many of yesterday’s and today’s offers about the organization’s new challenges will remain just empty words, like the previous ones. We consider important further steps to correct the functional and geographic imbalances in the work of our organization,» the head of state stressed.
Alexander Lukashenko also stated that the existing OSCE instruments in the field of confidence-and security needs to be improved. According to the President, one of the priorities is to update the 1999 Vienna Document. Belarus has submitted its comprehensive proposal on this matter and looks forward to its support, the president of the country.
«We’re consistently advocating for the unified security system creation under responsibility of our organization. This would help to give all participants a clear and equal guarantees in this area. In particular, we believe that today OSCE nuclear member-states could provide non-nuclear member-states with unconditional and unambiguous guarantees of security, sovereignty and territorial integrity. Yesterday, here in Astana, Belarus and the United States adopted a joint statement on joint measures to prevent nuclear proliferation, having thus confirmed already existing safeguards elements. This is an important and concrete contribution to the common cause of creating a secure Europe and the whole world,»- Alexander Lukashenko said.
As for the humanitarian sphere, the OSCE should treat combating human trafficking as a priority, the Belarusian leader said.
Lukashenko Invited the OSCE to Cooperate in Energy Sector
According to Alexander Lukashenko, the majority of countries’ strategic challenges involves economic-environmental and energy security.
«We offer to develop and adopt key principles of cooperation in energy security, which would lead to a common denominator in the interests of producers, transit countries and consumers,» Alexander Lukashenko stressed.
According to the President, Belarus is also in favor of strengthening the OSCE’s role in protecting energy infrastructure, the use of alternative and renewable energy sources, and ensuring all countries’ access to the advanced technologies in this field.
