The Standing Committee of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly voted Wednesday to approve 25 resolutions for consideration in the three general committees, including a resolution submitted by the Serbian delegation on Combat against Illicit Trade in Human Organs.

The draft resolution calls for an urgent comprehensive and independent international investigation of abductions and crimes, under the safeguard and mandates of the United Nations, aimed at the removal and sale of human organs in Kosovo during the war conflicts in 1999 and immediately afterwards.

In the draft resolution, UNMIK and EULEX, as well as relevant national institutions, are invited to cooperate in full, and to provide all information, facts and documents on crimes concerning abductions and trade in human organs in Kosovo.

The document strongly condemns the activities of organized criminal groups, which impair human living, their integrity and fundamental human rights, especially in cases where abductions are ethnically, religiously, racially and politically motivated.

The draft resolution invites OSCE member states to combat organized criminal groups dealing with these activities and recommends closer cooperation implying exchange of information and more efficient actions by the institutions and member states of OSCE in combating illicit trade in human organs.

The Serbian delegation supported the work of the OSCE special representative and coordinator for combating these crime and proposed that the OSCE investigate and document situations in which organ trafficking occurred, in order to produce a study presenting the scope of the problem.

Serbia's Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic will moderate a panel entitled Combat against Illicit Trade in Human Organs planned for July 9.

The OSCE PA adopted January 25 Dick Marty's report and resolution on illicit trade in human organs in Kosovo, which called for an international investigation.

Serbia urged the UN Security Council to form an independent mechanism to investigate the claims. The proposal met with support from Russia, while the EU and the United States wanted the case handled by EULEX.

In June, EULEX formed a working group to investigate the allegations made in Marty's report.