Belarusian powers not to start dialogue with PA OSCE :: Charter'97 :: News

The Belarusian powers “do not start dialogue” with the OSCE, as the head of the Working Group on Belarus of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly (PA OSCE), Bundestag Deputy Utta Zapf said commenting on the situation with the mutual seminars organization.

The agreement on holding in 2005 two seminars with the participation of the Belarusian powers representatives was reached this February during the visit of the working group of the PA OSCE to Minsk. The first seminar was to have been held May 30, then it was postponed at request of the Belarusian side to June, but it did not took place in June either.

According to U. Zapf, originally there was an agreement that the Belarusian Government and PA OSCE would make joint lists of the seminar’s participants and speakers whose candidatures neither side could decline. The problems with the date of the seminar started after the exchange of the lists. “I could only assume that the Government was extremely surprised by the OSCE list that certainly included the representatives of the democratic parties, public organizations and independent Mass Media,” - U. Zapf said.

U. Zapf refrains from prognoses regarding the future actions of the Belarusian side; she only points out that the powers “are not going to meet their obligations”.

According to the Parliamentarian, the other day she had a telephone conversation with the Belarusian Ambassador to Germany Uladzimir Skvartsou and informed him about the “discontent” of the PA OSCE concerning the refusal of the Belarusian side “to start dialogue”. “The subject of the first seminar - the opportunities of the Republic within the framework of the European neighbourliness policy - is essential and interesting for all and calls to positive cooperation itself,” - Utta Zapf emphasized.