He reiterated the Chairperson’s belief, expressed in his address to the OSCE Permanent Council on 17 January 2013, that the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly played a vital role and had an important contribution to make in promoting the Organization’s values, norms and commitments and in strengthening the effectiveness of the OSCE.

“While listening to members of parliaments at the Assembly’s sessions we hear the voice of the peoples living in the 57 participating States,” he said.

 “Election monitoring is one of the hallmarks of the OSCE,” Mr.Yatsiuk underlined, adding that Minister Kozhara hoped that all efforts were made to ensure co-operation and coherence in our activities in this area in order to reinforce OSCE’s credibility in the sphere of election observation.

In Chair’s view, there is a need to preserve the Organization’s distinguished features and make full use of the potential the OSCE. The discussions in the Parliamentary Assembly are an indispensable part of this patchwork of formats that the OSCE offers for such an exchange of views and mapping of common action.

The Special Envoy informed the parliamentarians of Ukraine’s priorities for its 2013 OSCE Chairmanship, with progress on the resolution of protracted conflicts, combating trafficking in human beings, strengthening media freedom and promoting the Helsinki +40 process among key issues.

Yatsiuk reiterated the Chairmanship’s determination to continue to lead and facilitate a result-oriented and structured dialogue in Vienna as a further step to making real progress towards the vision of a Security Community outlined in Astana.

The Special Envoy conveyed to the Parliamentary Assembly the OSCE Chair’s invitation to actively contribute to this process.

The OSCE Parliamentary Assembly’s 12th Winter Meeting is taking place in Vienna on 21-22 February 2013.