Tag: Press Release

The press release issued by the Foreign Office on 9 May 2024.

Ambassador Holland welcomes the Report by the Head of the OSCE Mission in Kosovo, and the work of the Mission over the last six months across the three pillars of its mandate.

Firstly, I would like to welcome Ambassador Davenport back to the Permanent Council for the final time as Head of the OSCE Mission in Kosovo. I would like to express my sincere gratitude for your expert leadership of the Mission over the last three (plus) years, during such a pivotal time for the Western Balkans region. Thank you, as always, for the written report on the activities of the Mission over the last six months, and the comprehensive presentation this morning.

Madam Chair, the United Kingdom shares the assessment in the Report of the concerning lack of progress towards Kosovo-Serbia normalisation, which continues to have negative implications for stability in the Western Balkans.

While the UK welcomes the progress in December on the energy roadmap and licence plates, many fundamental issues remain unresolved. We encourage both sides to engage constructively in the EU-facilitated Dialogue and to deliver on their respective obligations, including on establishing an Association of Serb-Majority Municipalities.

The UK will continue to encourage Kosovo to ensure that non-majority communities can play a full and equal role in the country’s future. In this respect, we urge Kosovo and Serbia to continue to work with the EU Special Representative to agree technical solutions to the implementation of the new regulation on foreign currencies.

We are also clear that Kosovo Serbs should be free to exercise their democratic rights and further integrate into Kosovan society. The recent boycott of the mayoral recall votes in the four northern municipalities is a step away from securing the representative democracy that the local population deserves, and we encourage Kosovo Serbs to return to institutions and serve their communities.

The UK reiterates the importance of ensuring justice and accountability for all acts of violence. We call on Serbia to cooperate fully with efforts to hold to account those responsible for the shocking attacks in Banjska last September, and on NATO KFOR troops last May. We also urge Serbia to take action to tackle cross-border arms smuggling.

In this context, the UK commends the work of the OSCE Mission during the last six months across the three core pillars of its mandate. In particular, we highly appreciate the Mission’s continued prioritisation of monitoring and early warning functions in light of the fragile security situation in northern Kosovo.

We value the Mission’s ongoing support to government institutions on human rights and inter-community relations, including recent support to delivery of the Kosovo government’s Strategy for the Protection and Promotion of the Rights of Communities. We also welcome the Mission’s continued work to strengthen institutional cooperation in tackling domestic and gender-based violence.

Madam Chair, the United Kingdom will remain a long-standing and strong supporter of Kosovo as an independent and sovereign state. We remain committed to supporting an inclusive, diverse and multi-ethnic democracy in Kosovo, and its full participation in the international system.

I would like to end by again thanking you, Ambassador Davenport, for your leadership of the OSCE Mission in Kosovo – both during this reporting period, and throughout the last three years. I commend your team’s expertise, engagement and hard work, and I wish you well in your future endeavours.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

The press release issued by the Foreign Office on 9 May 2024.

Ambassador Holland calls on Russia to release members of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission who have been unlawfully detained in Ukraine for more than two years.

Thank you, Madam Chair. It is with regret that we feel compelled, once again, to raise the cases of Vadym Golda, Maxim Petrov, and Dmytro Shabanov. All three are members of the Special Monitoring Mission in Ukraine (SMM) and have been unlawfully deprived of their liberty for more than two years by the Russian Federation and its proxies in Ukraine.

The SMM was established in 2014 through a decision of this body. Its mandate was agreed by all participating States, including Russia. For eight years the SMM, through its monitoring and reporting, acted as the eyes and ears of the international community, giving us much needed insight on the security situation in Ukraine.

In the years leading to Russia’s illegal full-scale invasion, independent and objective reporting of the SMM – which was provided equally to all participating States – was of significant value. It observed that an overwhelming majority of ceasefire violations took place in non-government-controlled areas of Ukraine. It observed advanced weaponry in these areas, weaponry that we know could only have been supplied by Russia. And it observed no unusual military build-up on the Ukrainian government-controlled side of the Line of Contact, demonstrating that Russia’s claims of a Ukrainian threat to the Donbas region were a fabricated pretext for Russia’s aggression.

So, you can see why Russia feared the impartial and fact-based reporting of the SMM.  The truth was an inconvenience.

So, over several years, Russia picked away at the ability of the SMM to operate; critically undermining the Mission’s freedom of movement and levelling unjustified criticisms.  Ultimately Russia was able to close down the SMM by blocking consensus on the extension of their mandate in the same way that it had closed down the Border Observation Mission.

Madam Chair, my government has previously put on record our sincere gratitude to the brave women and men of the SMM in Ukraine. They performed their OSCE-mandated roles with integrity and professionalism. They did so despite the risks to their safety, a risk underlined by the tragic loss of our two late colleagues:  Joseph Stone and Marina Fenina.  We should all be proud of them.

What none of us imagined was that our colleagues faced the risk of unlawful detention by the very people who asked them to do this difficult and dangerous job. Russia signed the SMM mandate, contributed to its operating costs and then betrayed their – and our – colleagues. It is truly shocking. The suffering that they and their loved ones are enduring remains a constant concern to us.

Russia’s actions fit a pattern, one that was set out very clearly in the report by the latest Moscow Mechanism expert mission. This found that: Russia had detained thousands of Ukrainian civilians, cutting them off from access to, or communication with, their loved ones; detainees were often subjected to torture and other ill treatment; and, the Russian authorities were restricting access to lawyers and denying fair trials.

As the expert mission noted “The continued detention of staff members of the OSCE SMM is incompatible with OSCE commitments”.

Madam Chair, we continue to call on Russia to end its unlawful detention of our colleagues and all Ukrainian citizens it has illegally detained. Thank you.

The press release issued by the Foreign Office on 9 May 2024.

Ms Danielle Dunne has been appointed His Majesty’s Ambassador to the Republic of Paraguay in succession to Mr Ramin Navai who will be transferring to another Diplomatic Service appointment.  Ms Dunne will take up her appointment during January 2025.

CURRICULUM VITAE

Full name:  Danielle Dunne