VIENNA. – While the mandates and composition of OSCE and Council of Europe are different, co-operation can give political impetus and create synergies on the ground, the Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian said in a speech to the representatives of the 57 OSCE participating States today. In May, Armenia took over the six-month long chairmanship of the Council of Europe.

“Since 2004, co-operation between these two organizations has been enhanced, in particular in the fields of protection of the rights of persons belonging to national minorities, the fight against terrorism, the fight against trafficking in human beings, and the promotion of tolerance,” he said.

“There is a common understanding that we should encourage the two organizations to enhance their co-operation, to exchange information and to co-ordinate their activities with the view of developing synergies and avoiding duplications.”

In his speech at the OSCE Permanent Council, Nalbandian also outlined Armenia’s priorities in the fields of human rights and rule of law at the Council of Europe, including combating racism and xenophobia in Europe, the promotion of European values through intercultural dialogue, the strengthening of European standards on human rights and the rule of law, and the fostering of democratic societies.

“Intolerance and xenophobia violate human dignity and challenge the cohesion of our societies. We would like to focus our attention on the hatred and intolerance, racist and xenophobic rhetoric used in political discourse as a tool for political propaganda, which contaminates the souls of the people, incites distrust and creates images of public enemies and leads to hate-induced crimes,” he said.

Nalbandian previously addressed the Permanent Council in March 2011. The Permanent Council is a key decision-making in the OSCE, which meets weekly in Vienna.