Ukrainian President: OSCE police mission to begin functioning in occupied territories of Donetsk and Luhansk regions

The participants of the Normandy meeting have agreed to introduce the OSCE police mission in the occupied areas of Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

“We have also agreed that nobody will hinder the OSCE’s activity in order to ensure preparations to the future local elections when security conditions will allow doing that. We will try to introduce the armed, we call it police, OSCE mission that will guarantee security of elections and transitional period,” Petro Poroshenko told journalists in Berlin following the negotiations in the Normandy format.

“I can point out that the Russian side has also supported the necessity of introduction of the OSCE armed police mission,” the President noted.

According to Petro Poroshenko, major part of today’s negotiations was dedicated to the discussion of security issues.

“It was clearly stated that all components of security issues of the Minsk agreements are part of the “roadmap” and implementation plan. I mean withdrawal of foreign troops, unhindered access for the OSCE SMM to the entire occupied area, including touch line, areas where the armament must be withdrawn, as well as the uncontrolled part of the Ukraine-Russia border,” the Head of State emphasized.

The President noted that the parties had agreed to establish permanent strongholds of the OSCE SMM in three areas in Zolote, Petrovske and Stanytsia Luhanska after the completion of separation of forces. Then we will begin negotiations to determine the next four places for separation.

“The Ukrainian party insisted that Debaltseve must be among these four places, because we must ensure demilitarization of that area. Under the memorandum of September 19 that area was controlled by Ukrainian military on February 12,” Petro Poroshenko said.

The parties also drew attention to the liberation of hostages in the occupied areas and Russia.

“We insist on immediate liberation of all hostages in “all for all” format. I am confident that it must finally give another boost to this process, which has been suspended for a long time because of Russia’s inaction,” Petro Poroshenko said. The Ukrainian proposal to ensure unhindered access to all illegally detained prisoners for ICRC representatives has been supported.

“We recalled all prisoners in Russia and occupied territories, including Suchchenko, Kolchenko, Sentsov and others. First of all, we must ensure unhindered access for advocates, consul and ICRC representatives,” the President noted.

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