BRATISLAVA (Reuters) - Slovakia‘s newly-installed government on Tuesday pledged to work with the country‘s gypsy minority to improve conditions that have driven many to seek asylum abroad. "The government wants to create an environment and conditions where all citizens would feel safe and would have no reason to leave their country," the government said in a communique issued through the official TASR news agency. The statement promised that the government would initiate "an open and concrete dialogue with representatives of the gypsy community". The authoritarian government of Vladimír Mečiar was defeated in elections in September. The new reform-minded government of Prime Minister Mikuláš Dzurinda was sworn in last Friday, and has promised to heal the wounds in Slovak society left by the previous administration. In response to a surge of mainly gypsy asylum seekers from Slovakia, Britain recently imposed visa requirements on Slovak citizens. A handful of asylum seekers have succeeded in obtaining refugee status but the remainder of the 1,800 applicants in the first eight months of the year were turned down. Britain says the majority of asylum seekers are economic migrants seeking a higher living standard but acknowledges that gypsies face discrimination in Slovakia.