Contents tagged with OSCE
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Italy calls for full implementation of the Minsk Agreements
In 2018, Italy replaced Austria as Chair of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe or OSCE. As Italian Foreign Minister Angelino Alfano said on January 1, during its period of leadership, Rome plans to center its efforts mainly on resolving a refugee crisis in the Mediterranean region.
Alfano also said that the organization will continue to closely monitor the situation in eastern Ukraine. The conflict in the Donbas and around Ukraine “challenges the very fundamental …
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Russia indignant that OSCE 'does not protect the rights of Russian speakers' in Ukraine and Baltics
Andrei Kelin, Director of the Russian Foreign Ministry's Department of European Cooperation (DEC) has stated that the Russian Foreign Ministry is in favor of reforming the OSCE over bias in the organization’s work, reports Gazeta.ru.
"We are concerned about the way the specialized institutions of the OSCE work. The bulk of their activities are concentrated in the field of human rights, and are implemented in relation to countries east of Vienna," Kelin said.
According to Kelin, the …
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Kyiv: separatists sent fake later to OSCE presumably on behalf of the residents demanding that Ukraine withdraw from the village of Hladosove in Donbas
The Ukrainian side of the Joint Center on Control and Coordination or JCCC reports that representatives of separatist-held territories of Ukraine fabricated a letter allegedly from residents of Hladosove to the first deputy head of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission, Alexander Hug, regarding the illegal seizure of territory by Ukrainian servicemen.
"The separatist media released information stating that the residents of the town Hladosove settlement had sent an open letter to the first deputy …
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Ukraine accuses pro-Russian separatists of deliberately burning agricultural lands
Under high fire risk conditions, militants in the Donbas are deliberately firing flares, aiming directly at fields and settlements and creating fires, said Yevhen Marchuk, Ukraine’s representative in the Security subgroup of the Trilateral Contact Group. “Temperatures in the Donbas are high now in the literal and the figurative sense. There is a lot of deadwood there, not to mention the fields with ripe grain. When the wind is in our direction, the separatists shoot flares, but not in the air …
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OSCE camera at Donetsk Filtration Station destroyed by shelling after one day of operation
A video surveillance camera set up by the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) at the Donetsk Filtration Station (DFS) was shot at and destroyed.
“The OSCE SMM camera at the DFS worked for only one day, and was shot from the south and south-west. The camera was destroyed,” said the OSCE SMM report on its microblog on Twitter on Wednesday, which included photos of the damaged camera.
Alexander Hug, Principal Deputy Chief Monitor of the OSCE SMM to Ukraine stated that before the camera was …
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The OSCE Parliamentary Assembly calls on Russia to return Crimea to Ukraine
The General Committee of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly (PA) on Political Affairs and Security approved a draft resolution during a session in Minsk, which calls for the return of the Crimea to Ukraine.
The author of the document entitled "Enhancing mutual trust and co-operation for peace and prosperity in the OSCE region," is the deputy head of the Swedish delegation, Margaret Söderfelt. In the near future, the draft will be submitted for a general vote by the assembly. According to the …
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State Department: US concerned about actions of pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine
State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert said on Thursday that the US is deeply concerned about the alarming pattern of violence and brutality on the part of Russia-supported separatists in eastern Ukraine toward unarmed civilian employees of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission.
Recently, she continued, in the east of Ukraine, a number of incidents have taken place in which the participants of the Monitoring Mission have been harassed, threatened, and subjected to shelling. This happened, …
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OSCE: The number of civilian deaths is increasing in the Donbas
Martin Sajdik, Special Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office in Ukraine and in the Trilateral Contact Group said that the number of deaths of civilians in the Donbas increased 120 percent over the last year, Interfax reports.
"It is very sad that the number of civilians killed during the year increased by 120 percent," Sajdik said in Minsk, having provided the relevant data. He noted that "this is the result of the continued use of heavy weapons and the delaying of mine clearance." …
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Germany: military parades in separatist republics violated the Minsk agreements
Germany said that military parades in the Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) and Luhansk People's Republic (LPR) violated the Minsk agreements and represented a threat to the population of the region, Ukrinform news agency reports.
The military parades were held in Donetsk and Luhansk on May 9. In the DPR, from 50 to 80 units of military equipment were involved while in the LPR more than 60 units of military equipment and weapons and 1,200 soldiers took part in the parade.
The German government …
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Turchynov blamed Russia for OSCE observer's death
The Secretary of the National Security and Defence Council (NSDC) of Ukraine, Oleksandr Turchynov, said that the military and political leadership of the Russian Federation are responsible for the death of an OSCE Special Monitoring Mission member (U.S. citizen) and the wounding of two representatives of the mission (citizens of Germany and the Czech Republic).
"This explosion was a planned act of terror directed against the OSCE Mission to the Donbas. The military-political leadership of the …