Special Representative
To:
PA President
and
PA Secretary General
PC Brief Week 6, 2015
This week, there were meetings of the Permanent Council (PC) and the Forum for Security
Cooperation (FSC), a cross-dimensional informal meeting to prepare for a Security Days, the
Preparatory (PrepComm) committees, and an extensive informal meeting with the Head of
the Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine (SMM), Ambassador Apakan.
The PC did not adopt any decisions. Ambassador Apakan confirmed media reports regarding
the recent escalation in Eastern Ukraine, which has caused a high number of civilian casual-
ties and presents severe security risks for the SMM-Monitors. Also, the Unmanned Aerial
Vehicles (UAVs = drones) used by the SMM have been shot at, their radio transmission has
been jammed making it impossible for them to operate, and one UAV crashed due to severe
weather conditions. While the informal briefing by Ambassador Apakan offered an opportuni-
ty to exchange views on what could be the necessary next steps to be taken, the debate at
the Permanent Council was more or less a repetition of the mutual accusations of previous
meetings. In addition, countries that are normally accused of violating OSCE commitments
are raising an increasing number of issues regarding the human rights performance of West-
ern countries.
Under Any Other Business, the delegation of the USA briefly referred to the visit by a PA del-
egation led by the Chair of the PA’s Human Dimension Committee, Isabel Santos, to the de-
tention facility in Guantanamo, stating that the US administration continues its efforts to close
down the facility. Early attempts to reach a consensus on a date for the annual Human Di-
mension Implementation Meeting (HDIM) have been unsuccessful so far.
The preparatory meeting for a Security Day on “promoting dialogue to advance tolerance and
prevent radicalization” to be held in May with a focus on the Mediterranean region, was intro-
duced by a lecturer from Tunisia and the representatives of the Anna Lindh Euro-Mediter-
ranean Foundation for the Dialogue between Cultures.
There is a considerable interest in the upcoming Winter Meeting of the OSCE PA, as demon-
strated by many requests for additional information received by the office.
Andreas Nothelle
Ambassador
February 9, 2015
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