Kazakhstan, Astana, March 2 / Trend D.Mukhtarov /
Norway's Ambassador in Kazakhstan Dag Malmer Halvorsen told reporters that he was surprised by President Nursultan Nazarbayev's criticism of the OSCE.
"Today, the president spoke very critically about the OSCE observers. This surprised us, but I think the OSCE countries will continue the dialogue on how to conduct electoral observations. They are very necessary, useful, and we need to find the best approach," he said.
On Friday, Nazarbayev reiterated that Astana may waive the OSCE observer mission's presence when holding elections in the country.
"As president of the country that hosted in December, 2010 a historic summit of the OSCE I'm worried about the lack of dynamics in implementing the Astana Declaration," Nazarbayev said on Friday at a meeting with ambassadors accredited in Kazakhstan.
The Kazakh president stressed that it's not only his opinion, "it is voiced all over the CIS".
"You can hear amazing things, unexplained. For example, many members of missions before the election positively speak about the organization of the electoral process, and then suddenly start repeating the same phrases about the mythical non-compliance with some
standards," said Nazarbayev.
"We know perfectly well that they come with prepared texts prepared before the election, and voice the same thing after the election - it pulls us back in time, undermines the importance of the OSCE as an institution of mutual trust," he added.
Nazarbayev said the OSCE has not become a platform for search of recipes to get out of the economic stupor, in which all states of this organization are.
"All see the obvious flaws in the system, but the issues of economic responsibility are still outside the priorities of the OSCE," he stressed.
"The military dimension of the OSCE has frozen, the process of Corfu stalled, Kazakhstan's proposal to expand the baskets of security within an organization is also not yet implemented. I hope that you will bring my concerns to the attention of your governments and
international organizations," Nazarbayev appealed to the representatives of diplomatic missions.