News and press releases

BELGRADE, 12 March 2015 – Today’s decision by the OSCE Permanent Council in Vienna to extend the mandate of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine (SMM) and allocate necessary resources confirms the support and commitment of all 57 participating States to implementing the Minsk agreements and to the Mission, said OSCE Chairperson-in-Office and Serbia’s Foreign Minister Ivica Dačić...

VIENNA, 12 March 2015- The Council of Europe and OSCE need to further capitalize on their strengths to effectively address the challenges facing their member countries, said Didier Reynders, Belgium’s Foreign Minister and current chair of the Council’s Committee of Ministers, in his address to the OSCE Permanent Council on 12 March 2015.

COPENHAGEN, 12 March 2015 – The third event in the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly’s Helsinki +40 seminar series took place on 11 March in Stockholm, with experts, policy-makers, ambassadors and OSCE parliamentarians considering how the European security architecture, and the OSCE’s inclusive security community in particular, can better prevent conflicts and respond to new threats...

The SMM monitored the implementation of the “Package of measures for the Implementation of the Minsk agreements”. The SMM, based on its monitoring – which was restricted by third parties and by security considerations* – observed that fighting continued in areas in and around the Donetsk airport and in areas to the east of Mariupol...

Kamensk-Shakhtinsky, Russian Federation. The Observer Mission (OM) continues to operate 24/7 at both BCPs. The overall cross-border traffic increased at both Border Crossing Points (BCPs) confirming OM’s predicted return of movement into Ukraine. The OM also observed an increase of the number of persons in military-style clothing crossing the border in both directions...

The SMM monitored the implementation of the “Package of measures for the Implementation of the Minsk agreements”. The SMM, based on its monitoring – which was restricted by third parties and by security considerations* – directly observed heavy fighting in and around the Donetsk airport and in the areas to the east of Mariupol. The SMM was granted access to a number of storage sites where Ukrainian Armed Forces heavy weapons are concentrated, following the movements of weapons monitored by the SMM in recent days...

“The Geneva International Discussions are and remain the only inclusive platform for dialogue,” said OSCE Secretary General Lamberto Zannier during an official visit to Georgia on 8-11 March 2015...