Moscow stands for broader support of OSCE monitoring mission in Ukraine - Russia's FM

News | 24.02.2015 | 22:12

The Normandy Four states - Russia, France, Germany and Ukraine, will be promoting initiative on broader financing as well as the increase of personnel and equipment of the monitoring mission of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in Ukraine, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Tuesday. "As it was ordered by [Normandy Four] leaders on February 12 in Minsk, we spoke for the extension of the mandate of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, for supplementing it with additional personnel, equipment and finances," Lavrov said after the talks of the Normandy Four top diplomats in Paris. "We will be promoting this initiative at the OSCE headquarters," the Russian foreign minister added. The Belarusian capital of Minsk hosted on February 12 summit talks of Normandy Four leaders - Russian President Vladimir Putin, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, French President Francois Hollande and German Chancellor Angela Merkel. The 16-hour marathon summit negotiations ended in a package of agreements, which in particular envisaged ceasefire between the Ukrainian conflicting sides starting from midnight on February 15. The ceasefire agreement reached at the talks in Minsk in mid-February was not the first during the military conflict in Ukraine, which erupted almost a year ago. The deterioration in Ukraine prompted a diplomatic blitz from Hollande and Merkel early this month as they went first for talks with Poroshenko in Kiev on February 5 and then met with Putin in Moscow the other day. Currently, the conflicting sides in Ukraine say combat activity on the separation line has decreased. Thousands have been killed and hundreds of thousands of people have fled Ukraine’s embattled east as a result of clashes between Ukrainian troops and local militias in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions during Kiev’s military operation, launched in mid-April 2014 to regain control over parts of the breakaway territories, which call themselves the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s republics. TASS

Tags: OSCE Novorossiya Russia Lavrov