Peskov: Conditions for work of police mission in Ukraine unclear to OSCE yet

MOSCOW, October 22. /TASS/. OSCE as yet do not realize as yet the conditions for possible work of the military mission in Donbass, the Russian president’s Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov said in an interview with the weekly Vesti V Subbotu program, in reponse to a question about the suggestion from Ukraine’s President Pyotr Poroshenko to have an armed police mission of the OSCE in Donbass to settle the conflict there.

Poroshenko said about that idea after talks of the Normandy Four leaders in Berlin on October 19.

Peskov said, "nobody objected to the idea to have an armed OSCE police mission there."

"But in this case it is a question mostly addressed to OSCE as an organization, which, by the way, is now chaired by Germany," he said. "The organization itself now is unable to explain the conditions the of such mission’s work."

He continued saying "realistically a mission does not exist as yet, but President Putin agreed, he did not object, he said - we are ready to agree to a mission of the kind."

In a response to a question how the Western counterparts in the Normandy Four reacted to a complaint from Pyotr Poroshenko about Donbass, where people would not pay to Kiev for consumed water, Peskov supposed the "European counterparts realize the situation, where on one hand Kiev complains de-facto two big regions have broken off, but still Kiev continues to push away from itself those regions and the people living there."

"They would not send over there medicines, pensions, wages. But, at the same time, they are complaining the two regions have broken off, and wonder why the people living in those regions would not want to live inside Ukraine. This is a fact, and in my opinion, it finds more and more understanding," the press secretary said.

He once again stressed there is no alternative to implementation of the Minsk agreements to settle the conflict, and called the key result of the recent Berlin talks the fact that "the political will of the Normandy Four leaders is confirmed, they will continue working on implementation of the agreements."

"Everyone is interested in making sure the Minsk agreements do not remain only on paper. And Russia is interested because, as President Putin used to say many times, we are interested in stable, booming, friendly, predictable Ukraine; Russia is truly interested in stable united Ukraine," he said.