Sunday, December 6, 2015

Russia blocks adoption of declaration on OSCE SMM activities in Ukraine - Kyiv

A Russian delegation at a meeting of the OSCE ministerial conference in Belgrade has blocked the adoption of a declaration on the activities of the special monitoring mission (SMM) in Ukraine, according to the Foreign Ministry of Ukraine.

"OSCE Council of Ministers has finally ended. Russia has blocked a number of documents. And most importantly a declaration of activities of the SMM in Ukraine," the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry's spokesperson Mariana Betsa wrote on Twitter in the early hours on Saturday.

At the same time, she added that in the concluding statement of the delegations "all Western partners condemn the aggression of the Russian Federation, the illegal occupation of Crimea, and the destabilization of Donbas."


According to the European Truth online publication, the OSCE Ministerial Conference ended in Belgrade on Saturday night with the adoption of several declarations, but the ministers failed to agree on the final decision. This was reported at a press conference in Belgrade, OSCE Secretary General Lamberto Zannier and the organization's Chairman-in-Office, Foreign Minister of Serbia Ivica Dacic.

"We have invested a lot of efforts to reach consensus on a number of issues at this Ministerial Council. However, in some of the cases this was not possible," Dacic said. In his words, they agreed on declarations condemning terrorism, on drugs, combating extremism, as well as a statement on the Transdniestrian process in the "5+2" format.

However, the decision on Ukraine was not adopted.

The fact that the OSCE ministers had problems with the adoption of the final decision on Ukraine was due to the atmosphere of mistrust and divisions. They should start with reconciliation, Zannier said.

However, he believes that, despite the crisis in the OSCE this format is necessary: He said that the most important decisions were not the formal ones, but those passed on the sidelines of the meeting.



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