We would like to express our appreciation to Ambassador Wieck for his thorough and unfortunately sobering presentation, as well as the recent written reports the AMG has provided us. They indicate how badly the situation in Belarus has deteriorated since the Istanbul Summit.

When the Belarusian National Assembly passed a deeply flawed electoral code on January 24, it ignored the key recommendations of the OSCE completely, and bypassed the OSCE-mediated dialogue process.

By imposing an undemocratic electoral code, the Government of Belarus has shown contempt for the OSCE in at least three ways.

First, the Government of Belarus violated its July 15, 1999 agreement with the opposition and the OSCE Advisory and Monitoring Group.

Under this agreement, the elaboration of a new electoral law is one of the specific tasks of the government-opposition dialogue. The National Assembly, however, disregarded the OSCE dialogue process.

Second, by ignoring and ultimately subverting the OSCE roundtable, Belarus violated its commitments under paragraph 22 of the Istanbul Declaration, which calls for progress in that dialogue.

Shortly after the Istanbul Summit, the Government negotiator at the roundtable was relieved of his responsibilities. The Government of Belarus has not even bothered to appoint a successor.

Third, passage of the electoral law follows a larger, long standing pattern of violation of OSCE commitments in the areas of democratization, media freedom, and human rights.

Our Belarusian colleague asserted last week that the opposition did not respond to the invitation to participate in drafting the electoral law. The AMG's latest written report, however, states correctly that the Government of Belarus failed to negotiate with the opposition about the law, as required by the July 15 agreement. Asking the opposition to comment on draft legislation, is hardly the same thing as sitting down with the opposition and negotiating a text.

Our Belarusian colleague asserted today that ODIHR's critical evaluation of the electoral code was based on an early draft, which had later been extensively amended. He asserted that the government had "paid special attention" to the comments of the AMG. The AMG’s reporting, however, states that there has been no substantive change to the most objectionable parts of the draft law.

In sum, the crisis of political legitimacy in Minsk has taken a sharp turn for the worse.

In the three years since Mr. Lukashenko precipitated a constitutional and political crisis, his National Assembly has failed to gain international recognition.

This illegitimate legislative body is now joined by a president who has clung to power beyond the expiration of his lawful term of office.

The way out of this impasse is through genuinely free and democratic elections, recognized as such by all sides in Belarus and by the international community. This has been the aim of Ambassador Wieck, of his mission, the OSCE, various parliamentary assemblies, including ours, and of the international community more broadly.

The United States looks forward to the day when it becomes the aim of the Belarusian Government as well.