The abuse of migrants on EU borders needs to be stopped without delay, Croatian Foreign Minister Gordan Grlic-Radman has said at the 28th meeting of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe Ministerial Council in Stockholm, the ministry said on Thursday.

“We are also deeply concerned because of the increasingly bad political situation in Belarus. The abuse of migrants on the border with the EU needs to be stopped without delay,” he said in his address.

Belarus is in a conflict with the EU over the migrants on its western border. The EU is accusing President Alexander Lukashenko and his regime of a hybrid attack by using migrants whom they are bringing from the Middle East and directing to the borders of Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland.

Grlic-Radman called for strengthening the OSCE’s role, saying that its member states faced numerous challenges.

“The OSCE’s main tools – measures to build trust and security, field operations and autonomous institutions, protection of human rights, peace and stability – should continue to be developed and modernised as well as financed in a timely and realistic fashion in order to be effective,” he said.

“We especially appreciate the role of the OSCE Mission to Bosnia and Herzegovina in supporting stability, the rule of law, democratic values and institutions. We strongly encourage electoral reform and other efforts to ensure the legitimate, just and non-discriminatory political representation of all three constituent peoples,” the minister added.

On the fringes of the meeting, he met with OSCE High Commissioner for National Minorities Kairat Abdrakhmanov. They discussed the status of the Croatian minority, notably in Serbia and Montenegro.

Grlic-Radman expressed concern about the conflict in Ukraine and regret over a decision to expel OSCE’s monitoring mission from two Russian checkpoints. He also called for greater efforts to solve the conflicts in Georgia and Moldova.

He also commented on the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh, whose solving is a key task for the OSCE, the ministry said.

“We commend the OSCE’s work in looking for a lasting solution after the ceasefire agreement, and call on Armenia and Azerbaijan to hold a constructive dialogue in order to find a comprehensive solution to the dispute,” said Grlic-Radman.