Rupel Tells Ukrainian Officials He Has Come to Listen
Foreign Minister Dimitrij Rupel, on a visit to Ukraine as the OSCE chairman-in-office, has told the officials there that he has come to express his admiration and congratulations on the democratic process, and to listen and to learn.
Speaking to the press following his talks on Wednesday morning, Rupel said that the future activities of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) will have to adapt to Ukraine's needs. His job will be to find out how to best do this in Slovenia's one-year stint at the helm of the organisation.
Rupel held separate meetings with his counterpart Kostyantyn Hryshchenko, Speaker of Parliament Volodymyr Litvin and Yulia Timoshenko, an opposition leader and a candidate for prime minister.
Earlier, Rupel met the head of the OSCE Observer Mission, Ambassador Geert Ahrens, who briefed him on the mission observing Ukraine's repeat presidential run-off on 26 December. Rupel told the ambassador Slovenia was keen to know how it could help as OSCE president.
All officials agreed that the mission did an important job. Timoshenko thought the observers should continue their work in a parliamentary election due in the country later this year. She said the OSCE's role in the election was "vital".
The mission was the largest OSCE observer mission ever, composed of more than 1,000 observers. These assessed that the re-run was much fairer than the initial poll. According to them, Ukraine has taken a major step forward towards meeting international standards of free and fair elections.
According the OSCE chair Rupel, the organisation wants democratic processes to be successful, which does not mean, however, that it is in favour of any party but wants to pay attention to all sides.
"The OSCE is as much Ukrainian as it is Slovenian, Russian or US organisation, while the chair serves equally to all," Rupel said. After the meeting with his counterpart Hryshchenko, Rupel said Slovenia would like to ensure an equal approach to all three dimensions of the OSCE - security, economy and human rights.
Russia in particular has often expressed the view that the OSCE has been concentrating too heavily on human rights, while it has also been critical of OSCE election observer missions. Moscow believes that the organisation has been using double standards, noting that most of such missions are sent to countries east of Vienna.
Russia was also critical of the latest OSCE observer mission in Ukraine, saying the observers were not unbiased in performing their job. Responding to the criticism, OSCE Mission Head Ahrens told Rupel that the 26 December re-run election was also monitored by 61 observers from the Commonwealth of Independent States, which brings together countries that emerged on the territory of the former Soviet Union.
After the meeting with Rupel, Ukraine's foreign minister also underscored the need "to discuss an equal approach to elections, regardless of where these take place". He noted that the OSCE had played an important part in the electoral process in his country, in particular in establishing standards.
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