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Grave European security crisis, resulting from Russia’s aggression towards Ukraine, is the most important item on the agenda of the meeting of the OSCE Ministerial Council on 3-5 December 2014 in Basel.

“We are dealing with an intentional and deliberate violation of the OSCE norms and principles, which is destructive to the OSCE foundations. Joint efforts of the OSCE participating States will not suffice. What we need is political will of each and every OSCE participating State to respect and comply with the OSCE Helsinki Final Act and the OSCE’s other commitments, fundamental principles and values,” underlined in his speech Lithuania’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Linas Linkevičius, who is attending the meeting.

Speeches by the OSCE’s Foreign Ministers signalled concerns about the gross violations of the principles of international law and the Helsinki Final Act, the other OSCE commitments, as one participating State had undermined another country’s sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence.

The Minister stressed that the OSCE could no longer stay on the sidelines in the face of the unilateral and brazen violations of security and international law.

“The world awaits from OSCE Ministerial Council concrete decisions contributing to the Ukrainian conflict resolution. If we fail to prevent further damage to the OSCE’s foundations and if we fail to strengthen them, if the violations of human rights and democracy standards set out by the OSCE continue, this important European security organisation will lose credibility and strategic purpose,” warned Lithuania’s Foreign Minister.

Lithuania’s Foreign Minister also called for the withdrawal of Russian weapons, troops and mercenaries from Ukraine, and the sealing of the Ukraine-Russia border under international observation.