Aleinik: OSCE was created as platform for dialogue but turned into battlefield

Belarus and Russia agree that the OSCE is in crisis today, and this crisis is compound, tackling all three dimensions: military-political, economic and human – as stated by Belarus’ Foreign Minister Sergei Aleinik after a joint meeting of the foreign ministries of Belarus and Russia

He recalled that today a fairly large number of hot conflicts are in the OSCE area of responsibility, “Confidence-building measures have been interrupted, and the erosion of mechanisms did not begin yesterday. This has been building up over the past few years.”

According to Sergei Aleinik, in the economic sphere it is also difficult to remember a real project that would benefit Belarus or Russia.

“In the human dimension, there is a bias and emphasis on pushing around all the countries that are located eastwards of Vienna. What can we talk about if for many years the Organisation for Security and Co-operation has not been able to develop common standards for evaluating elections. This is a topic that we have talked about repeatedly over the years, including together,” the Foreign Minister noted.

He also recalled that the OSCE does not react in any way to the illegal nature of economic sanctions that affect citizens, their rights, including the right to movement of citizens in the OSCE region. Meanwhile, these restrictions were imposed by Western countries – members of the OSCE.”

“Unfortunately, today we can state that the organisation, which was formed and created as a platform for dialogue, for finding solutions and compromises, has turned into a battlefield,” Belarus’ Foreign Minister stressed.