News and press releases

VIENNA, 28 October 2014 – “Challenges facing us are too big for any single country or region to tackle them alone. Co-operation and common action are an absolute necessity”, said OSCE Secretary General Lamberto Zannier at the 20th Annual OSCE Mediterranean Conference, taking place on 27/28 October in Neum, Bosnia and Herzegovina...

The situation remained calm on Election Day throughout most of Ukraine, including around Shchastya in the Luhansk region, where a local truce seems to have been arranged, and in Donetsk city. A number of frontline villages to the south of Donetsk city were, however, subjected to shelling...

BERN, 27 October 2014- Didier Burkhalter, Swiss Foreign Minister and OSCE Chairperson-in-Office, congratulated Ukrainians for taking part in the early elections of the parliamentary assembly. Taking good note of the preliminary findings of the International Election Observation Mission that these elections marked an important step in Ukraine’s aspirations to consolidate democratic elections in line with its international commitments, he thanked the election observation mission of the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (OSCE/ODIHR) and the observation delegation of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly as well as other international institutions for their engagement...

VIENNA, 27 October 2014 – Representatives of law enforcement agencies, government authorities and the private sector, such as the chemical industry or the transportation industry, working to control precursors and synthetic drugs are meeting in Vienna today to explore how to enhance collaboration between law enforcement and non-law enforcement actors to combat the threat of illicit drugs effectively...

The SMM continued focusing on the implementation of the provisions of the Minsk Protocol and Memorandum. The situation remained volatile in Donetsk and Luhansk. The SMM was prevented from entering the city of Telmanove...

The SMM continued focusing on the implementation of the provisions of the Minsk Protocol and Memorandum. The situation remained volatile in Donetsk and Luhansk. In Kharkiv local authorities reported to the SMM that the number of registered IDPs had doubled since August. The SMM continued to receive reports of false bomb threats in Lviv...

BELGRADE, 24 October 2014- Ambassador Angelo Gnaedinger, the Special Representative of the Swiss OSCE-Chairperson-in-Office for the South Caucasus, today held consultations about the OSCE engagement in the South Caucasus in 2015 with the incoming Serbian Chairmanship...