POTSDAM, September 1./TASS/. The working part of an OSCE ministerial meeting has ended, and the rest of the day will be devoted to the cultural program organized by Germany as the holder of the current presidency of the European security agency.
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said earlier that a second session was to focus on confidence-building measures between the East, first of all Russia, and the West. The Ukraine crisis dominated the first session.
The OSCE "is the only organization in Europe where Russia and the West can conduct a dialogue despite all conflicts and contradictions," the German foreign minister stressed.
"It is not surprising that we discussed the conflict in Ukraine at our today’s meeting. Naturally, I am concerned with the state of implementation of the Minsk Agreements. It is important that all the sides are referring to ‘Minsk’ and consider the Minsk agreements to be the foundation for conducting the talks," Steinmeier said.
The main part of the cultural program is foreign ministers’ trip to the Gliencker Bridge across the Havel River, where the border between West Berlin and the German Democratic Republic passed in Cold War times. It was the site where West Germany and East Germany several times exchanged captured spies, and reporters started calling it "the Bridge of Spies".