We welcome the High Commissioner's commitment to helping the government of FYROM address the desire of so many to pursue higher education in their mother tongue. We appreciate the recommendations he offers in that spirit.

We understand the FYROM government is committed to responding to the needs of its ethnic communities and is considering several initiatives to achieve that objective.

We join the High Commissioner in praising the new Slovak government's commitment to reach out to ethnic minorities.

The Slovak government signaled its commitment on this score just this week, when the cabinet adopted legislation for bilingual school report cards. We should not underestimate the value of this step in making a positive contribution in homes and communities throughout the country.

We were pleased to learn that the Slovak government has announced as a policy its commitment to address the problems of the Roma community. We encourage the government to take concrete steps to address the human rights concerns of the Roma community.

We, too, want to commend the government of Latvia for the progress it has made in recent months on language and citizenship issues.

We encourage the new government to seize on that positive momentum by implementing fully and expeditiously new laws pertaining to citizenship.

We also want to encourage the Latvian government to redouble its efforts to facilitate access to the naturalization process for all interested individuals.

The U.S. would again like to congratulate Estonia on the December 8 adoption by its parliament of a new citizenship and naturalization law, which brings Estonia into effective compliance with all OSCE recommendations pertaining to these matters.

At the same time, we appreciate the High Commissioner's concerns with regard to the recent adoption of an amendment to the election law. International law and OSCE documents offer valuable guidance on how to treat this matter and we encourage the Estonian government to take the necessary steps to ensure its laws meet those important standards.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.