According to Igor Sekreta, the forum addressed issues that are particularly important not only in terms of international human rights obligations but also in the context of current political and humanitarian challenges facing the OSCE area of responsibility. These issues are heavily politicized or completely ignored by Western countries, he noted.
For Belarus, these include countering the glorification of Nazism and its collaborators, neo-Nazism, chauvinism, and aggressive nationalism. This issue has special historical and moral significance for Minsk, Igor Sekreta emphasized. The Belarusian people endured tremendous hardships during the Great Patriotic War and made a significant contribution to the victory over Nazism.
«The memory of war victims, destroyed cities and burned villages, the fate of civilians and the heroism of those who fought against Nazi ideology are an integral part of our national identity,» he said. «Therefore, any attempts to justify Nazism, glorify its collaborators, rehabilitate misanthropic ideologies or downplay the crimes of World War II cannot be treated as secondary issues in historical debate. They affect the foundations of the post-war European order and pose risks to future generations.»
Igor Sekreta stressed that, amid increasingly heated debates across Europe over historical memory, national identity, and the interpretation of past events, it is especially important to prevent historical facts from being replaced by political expediency.
«Combating neo-Nazism requires consistent educational and awareness-raising efforts, which Minsk and Moscow carry out on a regular basis, including at OSCE events,» he said.
Most recently, the diplomatic missions of Belarus and Russia held an international roundtable at the Hofburg in Vienna to mark the 85th anniversary of the establishment of the Maly Trostenets Nazi death camp near Minsk. The event, titled «Common ground in the memory of different cultures,» sought to foster a comprehensive dialogue based on shared responsibility for preserving the memory of Nazi victims, he noted.
The event was held in Vienna under the auspices of the Permanent Mission of Russia to the OSCE and with the support of the Permanent Mission of Belarus to the OSCE. Participants included senior officials from foreign affairs and other government and public institutions of Belarus and Russia, representatives of Switzerland’s OSCE Chairpersonship, diplomats, experts, and civil society activists from Belarus, Russia, Switzerland, Kazakhstan, Israel, Hungary, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Spain, Serbia, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, the United States, Poland, Greece, Latvia, and Lithuania, and representatives of relevant OSCE institutions.
