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Minsk calls on OSCE to take urgent measures to conciliate contradictory positions

“It is necessary to jointly take urgent measures to prevent further wrench the spiral of reciprocal accusations, threats and sanctions, - Belarusian Foreign Ministry cited Minister Vladimir Makey said

MINSK, December 4. /TASS/. Minsk calls on the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to take urgent measures to conciliate contradictory positions, strengthen common security and overcome differences that have become especially evident on the background of the Ukrainian crisis, Belarusian Foreign Ministry cited Minister Vladimir Makey as saying on Thursday.

“It is necessary to jointly take urgent measures to prevent further wrench the spiral of reciprocal accusations, threats and sanctions. We must turn down the logic of confrontation and get back to the track of mutually respectful constructive dialogue,” he said at a meeting of the Council of OSCE Council of Foreign Ministers in Switzerland’s Basel.

Minsk, according to Makey, has already warned that attempt by some partners to press forward their own priorities to the prejudice of interests of other states, double standards, measures of political and economic pressure cannot lead to desirable results in the area of strengthening security and cooperation but, on the contrary, only widen the gap from the values and principles of the Helsinki agreements.

“Regrettably, the developments of the past year have become a graphic proof that we were right in our concerns. The political crisis in Ukraine, caused to a larger extent by the above reasons, had degraded into a bloody armed conflict that had brought destruction and suffering and taken the lives of thousands of innocent people,” the Belarusian minister noted.

Makey stressed that the tragic developments in Ukraine were “a catalyst of unprecedented in the recent decades growth of tension in Europe,” exacerbation of contradictions, the ministry said.

“The contradictions that have sharpened in the recent time should not be an excuse to turn down any attempts to solve difficult problems of the OSCE agenda, but they should be a motive to invigorate these attempts,” he underscored.