Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe

Azerbaijan's ruling party won an outright majority Nov. 1 in parliamentary polls that were boycotted by the mainstream opposition, near-complete results showed, cementing strongman President Ilham Aliyev's grip on power.

The Nov. 1 snap election is the key to getting Turkey out of the instability and insecurity it was dragged into after the June 7 election, President Recep Tayyip Erdo?an has argued, while reiterating an earlier warning to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to be fair in its evaluation of the upcoming elections. 

The European Union agreed on Oct. 12 to suspend sanctions against the regime of Belarussian strongman Alexander Lukashenko after he won a fifth term as president, even though observers said the poll was flawed. 

EU foreign ministers have agreed on a provisional commitment to a four-month lifting of sanctions imposed on Belarus.

Russia has delayed a planned observation flight over Turkey upon a received request from Turkish authorities, Interfax reported on Oct. 12, citing the Russian Defense Ministry. 

Local elections in Ukraine's Donbass region will be held in 2016 instead of this year, French President Francois Hollande has said.

The announcement has come after a "Normandy Four" summit between the leaders of France, Germany, Ukraine, and Russia, the website Lenta.ru reports.

The current ceasefire in the war in eastern Ukraine, the so-called Minsk-2 agreement, was signed last February, but they never actually ceased firing. At least a thousand more people have been killed in the fighting since then, and on one night last month (Aug. 14) the monitors of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) recorded 175 separate ceasefire violations.

The states of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) have to ensure the protection of the human rights of migrants in addressing the current crisis in Europe, speakers said at the opening of an OSCE conference on Monday.

The two-week conference in Poland's capital of Warsaw will focus on democracy and human rights.

In the run-up to the Nov. 1 snap elections, President Recep Tayyip Erdo?an has called on the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) for drafting reports taking into consideration Turkish voters coerced by armed threat.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has urged Russia to avoid holding snap military drills.