The fourth and final session of the 62nd General Assembly of the PABSEC took place today in Kyiv, at the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.
The delegates of the session discussed the transfer of the Chairmanship from Ukraine to Albania for the next, 63rd, spring session of the General Assembly.
The Head of the Permanent Delegation of Ukraine Anna Purtova was the first to take the floor. She thanked her colleagues for their support of Ukraine and willingness to cooperate for the sake of peace and security in the Black Sea region.
“Thank you for your courage and solidarity with Ukraine! You have come here despite the danger of war and have shown true friendship and support for Ukraine. Strengthening cooperation is an integral part of our work to ensure security in the Black Sea. And this is impossible without the full restoration of Ukraine’s territorial integrity, including Crimea. I am very glad that you share this opinion! And I wish Albania a successful chairmanship in PABSEC,” the MP said.
In response, the Head of the Albanian delegation, Member of the Parliament of Albania, Petro Koci, thanked the Ukrainian side for the high level of organisation of the event and its successful holding. The delegate also stressed that the participants of the meeting came to Kyiv to show their support and solidarity.
“The Black Sea Initiative is extremely important. If you look at the Black Sea from a broader perspective, it turns into an ocean of opportunities and interests. This includes economy, culture, energy, and military interests. And without proper cooperation, this ocean can become a swamp, which will be a very big problem. We see this example in russia’s actions. Countries that sympathise with it always run the risk of becoming an instrument for new conflicts. But any crisis can always become an opportunity. So, let’s use this crisis for positive changes in the Organisation. And I hope that the 63rd session, which will be held in Tirana, will be as successful as this one in Ukraine,” added Petro Koci.
Agreeing with the Albanian representative, the PABSEC Secretary General Asaf Hajiyev stressed that the end of any event is always the beginning of a new one. As an example, he cited the story of the Azerbaijani school in Irpin, which was destroyed by the russian occupiers, and today it has been restored and is working. And this, he said, is a good symbol for the future cooperation and development of the Organisation.
Following the three-day work of the General Assembly, the participants of the session adopted a Declaration in which, in particular, they strongly condemned the aggression of the russian federation against Ukraine and expressed solidarity and support for Ukraine “in the light of unprovoked, unjustified large-scale aggression of the russian federation, which has undermined the very essence of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation aimed at “transforming the Black Sea region into a region of peace, stability and prosperity”, as declared by the BSEC founding members.
The delegates also called upon the BSEC Member States to define a strategy to overcome the challenges posed by the destructive behaviour of the aggressor states and that will determine the activities of the PABSEC and the BSEC in the future, and to establish a working group to prepare amendments to the Rules of Procedure of the PABSEC in order to create an effective and reliable mechanism for suspending or expelling national delegations in case their countries grossly violate the goals and objectives of the Organisation and their parliaments explicitly support such actions.
At the end of the session, the delegates once again thanked the Ukrainian side for its hospitality and warm welcome, congratulated the Ukrainian Parliament on the success of the event and wished for a speedy restoration of Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.
The closing session of the 62nd PABSEC General Assembly was also attended by the Secretary General of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, Viacheslav Shtuchnyi.
