Arms Control Issues

On 24 October, a German inspection group completed two verifications of specified areas in Belarus under the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe.

The group inspected the 51st Combined Artillery Group and the combat group of the120th Independent Mechanised Brigade, which are subject to control under the Treaty.

The inspection group proved the correspondence between the actual amount of materiel limited by the treaty and the declared data.

Besides six military inspectors from Germany, the group also included an inspector from France, the Netherlands and Poland each.

From 20 to 24 October, a Belarusian inspection group conducted the evaluation visits to the Infantry Brigade of the Latvian Armed Forces and the Iron Wolf Mechanised Brigade of the Lithuanian Armed Forces under the Agreement on Additional Confidence- and Security-Building Measures between Belarus, Latvia and Lithuania.

During the visit, the inspectors evaluated the information, presented by Latvia and Lithuania to the OSCE member states according to the 2011 Vienna Document, on the personnel and materiel of the verified units.

From 21 to 23 October, Minsk hosted a working meeting between the experts of the Belarusian and Ukrainian Armed Forces, dedicated to the implementation of the Agreement on Additional Confidence- and Security-Building Measures between Belarus and Ukraine.

The Belarusian delegation was headed by Col. Victor Pyatkovsky, deputy chief of the National Agency for Control and Inspections, Belarusian Defence Ministry department. Col. Igor Turansky, chief of the Verification Department of the General Staff, the Ukrainian Armed Forces, headed the Ukrainian delegation.

During the meeting, the parties evaluated the implementation of the Agreement in 2013-2014 and worked out recommendations on its further development.

The delegations exchanged views on proposals of the OSCE member states to update the 2011 Vienna Document. It was pointed out that the joint proposal of Belarus and Ukraine on updating some provisions of Chapter IX of the 2011 Vienna Document was still on the agenda of the OSCE Forum on Security Cooperation.

At the end of the meeting, the heads of the delegations signed the protocol of the working meeting, which contains main activities of bilateral arms control cooperation in 2015.