26th Annual Session of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly in Minsk

MINSK, 6 July (BelTA) – Secretary General of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE PA) Roberto Montella welcomes Belarus’ proposal to start discussing the need to organize a new Helsinki process as part of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, BelTA has learned.

During the plenary session held on 5 July to mark the official opening of the 26^th annual session of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko suggested considering the advisability of a new Helsinki process in the OSCE. “It is a good and appropriate proposal,” believes Roberto Montella.

Roberto Montella congratulated the Belarusian side on the well-organized forum. He remarked that the delegates liked the conditions that had been created for them. The OSCE PA secretary general believes that the parliamentarians would be able to get to know Belarus better in addition to taking part in the OSCE PA session.

BelTA reported earlier that in his speech Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko pointed out the need to renew the pan-European dialogue on strengthening trust, security, and cooperation. “This should be done bearing in mind the enormous positive experience associated with the Helsinki process of the 1970s that showed that the actions should be proactive, rather than reactive. All this points to the relevance of the idea to launch a new Helsinki process, a broad dialogue aimed at overcoming the existing differences in the relations between the countries in our Euro-Atlantic and Eurasian region,” said the Belarusian leader.