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Lukashenko criticizes OSCE for non-fulfillment of its tasks

According to Lukashenko, OSCE is geared towards discord and confrontation rather than towards cooperation and security

MINSK, November 6 (Itar-Tass) — Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has criticized the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) for its failure to fulfill its original tasks.

“The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe might be needed as an organization if it kept to what it had originally declared,” the Belarusian leader told journalists on Tuesday. “The problem is that the West and the United States were interested in the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe when they were confronted with the powerful Soviet Union, now they no longer need this organization. And we do not need it because it does not fulfill its tasks.”

According to Lukashenko, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe is geared towards discord and confrontation rather than towards cooperation and security. Thus, in his words, OSCE observers came to monitor the parliamentary elections in Belarus with ready-made resolutions. The same thing happened in Ukraine. “But there (in Ukraine) there was an orgy of democracy. They have done whatever possible for the sake of this democracy,” he noted.

The Belarusian leader stressed that his country, along with Russia, Kazakhstan and Ukraine, insisted on common standards of evaluating election results that would be applicable to each and every country. Such criteria, in his words, have been elaborated in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). However, CIS opinions about elections are strictly antipodal to those of the OSCE. “They seek to impose their standards on us. But these standards are absolutely politicized,” Lukashenko said and added that these words were especially true of the United States, which position itself as a stronghold of democracy while refusing to accept international observers. These are not even double but triple standards, he stressed.

“If we pursue a policy in the interests of our people, it will not be advantageous for them. They would knock us until their people come to power,” he said and called on his fellow countrymen to “shape their own life” and “rebuff those who seek to encroach on it.”

Touching on the subject of the presidential elections in the United States, he noted that neither Belarus’ president nor its government takes any concern in them, while “the entire world is laughing at their elections.” In his words, they can hardly be called elections. “First, they are not direct elections, and a person who wins lesser number of votes may become a president,” Lukashenko noted. Still, if it is convenient for them, let them do as they want, he added.