OSCE AGAINST MONUMENT TO ESTONIAN SS MEN

VIENNA, August 23 (RIA Novosti's Borislav Pechnikov) - The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) said that it supported the Estonia government's position against the building of "a contradictory monument commemorating Estonians who fought on the side of Nazi forces in World War Two."

A statement by OSCE Chairman-in-Office, Bulgarian Foreign Minister Solomon Passy was published by the OSCE Secretariat in Vienna on Monday.

"In a phone conversation with the Chairman-in-Office," the statement said, "Estonian Foreign Minister Kristiina Ojuland expressed confidence that the case of the monument dedicated to the 20th Estonian SS division, which was set up in the town of Lihula on August 20, would be resolved in a just and prompt manner.

"'I appreciate and support the principled and democratic position of the Estonian government and the condemnation of this act by Estonian Prime Minister Juhan Parts. There is no excuse and there will never be an excuse for praising Nazism,' Minister Passy said.

"The Chairman-in-Office welcomed the Prime Minister's position and agreed with his comment that the monument, which depicts a soldier dressed in a German uniform, casts a shadow on the Estonian state and people."