Thank you, Madame Chairperson.

We welcome the recent democratic changes in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. The OSCE has an important role to play in supporting those changes, in welcoming the new Federal Republic of Yugoslavia into the family of democratic states, and in facilitating its integration into Europe and appropriate Euro-Atlantic fora. The Chair has been commendably active in this regard.

We note the Chair’s letter to Kostunica regarding Federal Republic of Yugoslavia membership in the OSCE. We would welcome a request from the new Yugoslav government to apply as a new OSCE member, as one of the equal successor states to the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, following a comparable path to membership in the OSCE. We join CiO and other delegations in concluding that the OSCE Ministerial would be an appropriate event to celebrate the democratic changes in Yugoslavia.

With regard to events this week in Belgrade, we are pleased to note reports of the power-sharing arrangement agreed to earlier in the week that will allow a transitional government of Serbia to be formed made up of members of the Socialist Party of Serbia, the Democratic Opposition of Serbia, and the Serbian Renewal Movement. We welcome the new elections for the Serbian Parliament that will be held in December.

This is a step forward in the process of consolidating democracy in Serbia. It prevents members of the current Serbian government – which supported former President Milosevic – from using its offices unilaterally, and gives the democratic forces a voice in these important Ministries leading up to the elections. President Kostunica and his allies face a complicated challenge in forming a new government. We strongly support his efforts to form it.

We welcome the Secretary-General’s report of his visit to Montenegro and applaud his initiative in undertaking that visit. First and foremost, we continue to support a democratic Montenegro within a democratic Yugoslavia. We are pleased that this week President Kostunica initiated a dialogue with President Djukanovic in a process to restructure the Yugoslav federation. We believe that the issue of the constitutional relationship between Serbia and Montenegro within the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia is for those two republics to address in a mutually acceptable way. We will continue our friendly relations with the Government of Montenegro and encourage a constructive dialogue between Serbia and Montenegro.