FM meets ODIHR Director

Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/ The Minister of Foreign Affairs L.Bold received Monday visiting Mr Janez Lenarcic, Director of the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) within the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). Expressing a satisfaction with actions of the OSCE observers running here, Mr Bold exchanged views with Mr Lenarcic on the further cooperation between Mongolia and the OSCE. Mongolia became previous year a Participating State of OSCE, and the bilateral ties have been intensively developing last months, having many important events, Mr Bold emphasized. In turn, Mr Lenarcic noted that the OSCE classifies its actions into four basic measurements such as politics, economy, environment and human security. In frames of these directions, the Participating States exchange views and consult on controlling armaments, strengthening trust, security, human rights and democracy, supporting economic development, saving environment and combating international crimes and terrorism, he said. Mr Lenarcic highlighted the OSCE is ready to cooperation with Mongolia in these matters including improving the gender equality, backing women’s participation in political and decision making levels. It is also possible to give advice to Mongolia for revising draft laws on specific issues, he added. Thanking the Mongolia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs for rendering support to actions of the OSCE Group of Observers, Mr Lenarcic underlined an importance of the Group’s objective to help countries for refining upon their democratic elections. For example, it has observed elections in the UK, USA and other developed countries. Headquarted in Warsaw, the ODIHR is active throughout the 57 participating States of the OSCE. It assists governments to live up to their commitments as participating States of the OSCE in the areas of elections, human rights, democracy, rule of law, and tolerance and non-discrimination. For the time being, the ODIHR is observing a course of the Presidential election here.