U.S. Response to OSCE Representative to the Joint Latvian-Russian Commission on Military Pensioners
As delivered by Political Counselor Gregory Macris
to the Permanent Council, Vienna
November 14, 2019
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
The United States welcomes you, Dr. Frohbart, in your annual address to the Permanent Council. We thank you for this report and appreciate your frank assessment that a large portion of your work is complete.
As your report notes, since 2008 there has not been one single request or appeal from a military pensioner to the Latvian-Russian Joint Commission on Military Pensioners. Further, you wrote that the Commission was not convened at all during the reporting period. Indeed, there have been no reports of a Commission meeting since 2013. We support your proposal, therefore, for the Representative to the Latvian-Russian Joint Commission on Military Pensioners to serve on a stand-by basis in the event of a request by one of the parties or an individual military pensioner. Longer term, I suggest that the members of this council take a hard look at whether funding this initiative, even on a stand-by basis, is a responsible use of our scarce resources.
We commend the Latvian institutions that have, for many years, successfully resolved all issues of concern related to Russian military pensioners.
Thank you, Dr. Frohbart, for your service.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
###
