Responding to questions from members of the Parliamentary Assembly (PACE), Council of Europe Secretary General Marija Pejčinović Burić confirmed that the organisation would soon be proposing an action plan to help Ukraine. “We must do everything we can to support the country” said the Secretary General, who also expressed her solidarity with the Ukrainian people and saluted their courage.
She said she would go to Kiev to discuss the country’s short and long-term needs as soon as she received an official invitation. She also underlined the measures already taken by the organisation, including moving the staff of the Council of Europe’s Kiev office to safety in neighbouring countries, working with Ukraine’s Prosecutor General to set up a group of experts to investigate flagrant human rights violations and providing Ukraine with five million euros from the Council of Europe bank to help with the refugee crisis.
In answer to a question on Moldova, the Secretary General said she was worried about the security situation in the country’s Transnistria region, and called on all countries to respect Moldova’s neutral status and territorial integrity. She said the Council of Europe would help the country in dealing with the huge influx of refugees from Ukraine.
Responding to a question on the sentencing to life imprisonment by a Turkish court of Osman Kavala, the Secretary General said she was very disappointed and remarked that this was the second time that courts in Turkey had missed the opportunity to comply with a judgement of the European Court of Human Rights that required Mr Kavala’s immediate release from custody.
Finally, the Secretary General strongly condemned death threats made against the former PACE rapporteur Dick Marty, in relation to his report on alleged organ trafficking in Kosovo.