The Cypriot MP and Vice President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, Irene Charalambides, expressed her satisfaction with the change of attitude of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE PA) and the interest shown in the developments in the Middle East and in particular their impact on the OSCE region, in an intervention she made at the Assembly's Mediterranean Forum which concluded on Friday According to a press release issued by the House of Representatives, while acknowledging that the contribution of the OSCE PA to the resolution of the Middle East conflict is de facto limited, Charalambides argued that even powerful actors such as the US or the UN do not seem capable of influencing the decisions of the Israeli government. Referring to Cyprus, she noted that while it remains the European Union country with the largest number of asylum seekers in terms of population, it continues to try to contrib ute to the extent of its capabilities to mitigate the humanitarian consequences of the conflict, having devoted resources to hosting Ukrainian refugees, and, as regards the conflict in the Middle East, having established a humanitarian corridor to Gaza, while providing every facility for third-country nationals evacuated from the areas where the current conflicts are raging. Furthermore, Charalambides criticised the recent decision of the German government to close its land borders, pointing out the consequences of this decision for other EU countries and noting that this development should be of concern to the Assembly, in particular the Ad Hoc Committee on Migration. In this context, she argued that the EU needs a holistic approach to address the increased flows resulting from the conflict in the Middle East, rather than unilateral or haphazard approaches, the press release concluded. Source: Cyprus News Agency