Special Representative
To:
PA President
and
PA Secretary General
PC Brief Week 37, 2014
This week, there were meetings of the Permanent Council (PC), the Forum for Security Coop-
eration (FSC), the Preparatory Committee (PrepCom) and informal briefings and discussions.
There was no regular meeting of the PC this week because of the closing session of the Eco-
nomic and Environmental Forum in Prague during the second half of the week. As mentioned
in last week’s report circulated on Monday, an abbreviated agenda of the Human Dimension
Implementation Meeting (HDIM) in Warsaw has finally been agreed upon at the special meet-
ing of the PC that took place on Monday.
The Special PC’s main focus was on the crisis in Ukraine. Mr. Jeffrey Feltman, UN Under-
Secretary General for Political Affairs, and Mr. Ivan Simonovic, Assistant Secretary-General
for Human Rights, spoke at length about the political and humanitarian issues related to the
crisis in Ukraine as well as the future of OSCE-UN cooperation. The polemics were less bel-
ligerent than previously, most probably because of the cease-fire agreement. Although the
presentations by the two UN officials could have been a basis for more concrete discussions
about future avoidance of bloodshed, it was again left to the Chairmanship and the Secretariat
to give concrete information about the OSCE’s reaction to the cease-fire: 59 staff from the
Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) were immediately redeployed in order to be able to observe
the implementation of the agreement, and the recruitment of an additional 250 observers has
begun. In the regular meeting of the FSC, during which Monaco took over the FSC Chairman-
ship, Russia made a very aggressive statement concerning Ukraine, but also commended
Poland for its detailed announcement of a military exercise.
Under Current Issues, the PC held a brief debate on the current situation in Iraq and Syria
regarding the IS terrorists. Partners for Cooperation participated in this debate. In this context,
Malta again reminded participating States of Libya’s unmet request to be included among the
Partners for Cooperation, and Egypt pointed to an alliance formed by Libya’s neighbors to ad-
dress the threats resulting from the actual political split in the country and the dominance of
the Islamists in some parts. They called for more joint efforts of regional organizations such as
the OSCE and League of Arab States to combat the issue of foreign fighters and extremism.
The USA emphasized its “No-Concessions Policy,” which prevents the USA from engaging in
ransoms for kidnappings, and urged others to do the same. On Moldova, several Western
countries expressed regret that the 5+2 talks on the Transdniestrian conflict originally sched-
uled for 11-12 September in Vienna had been postponed by Tiraspol for the second time this
year. The EU in particular decried Tiraspol’s “preconditions”.
Andreas Nothelle
Ambassador
September 15, 2014
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