All news

OSCE’s East-Ukrainian joint center offers plan for demilitarized zone in Donbas

An initiative on setting up a demilitarized zone 50 kilometers to 70 kilometers wide that would help settle the conflict in eastern Ukraine was voiced last week by the French President

VIENNA, February 10. /TASS/. The Joint Center for Control and Coordination (JCCC) of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe located in the eastern Ukrainian Donetsk region has come up with an initiative to set up a demilitarized zone in Donbas, the OSCE’s Special Monitoring Mission in Ukraine said in a regular report on Monday.

"On 8 February the SMM visited the JCCC headquarters, temporarily relocated to Soledar (77km north of Donetsk, government-controlled), where Ukrainian Armed Forces and Russian Federation Armed Forces officers were present with members of the "Donetsk People’s Republic" ("DPR") and "Luhansk People’s Republic" ("LPR")," the report said.

"The Ukrainian Major-General, Head of the Ukrainian side to the JCCC and the Russian Major-General, Representative of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation at the JCCC, told the SMM about a Russian initiative for a de-militarized zone, which had been sent to the Ukrainian and Russian Armed Forces General Staffs for further discussion," the mission said.

An initiative on setting up a demilitarized zone 50 kilometers to 70 kilometers wide that would help settle the conflict in eastern Ukraine was voiced last week by the French President, Francois Hollande during talks with the German Federal Chancellor, Angela Merkel, and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and then with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

One of the main achievements of these talks was an agreement to hold a summit in the Belarusian capital Minsk in the so-called "Normandy format" on Wednesday, February 11.