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Ukrainian president says issue of peacekeepers in Donbas may fall off

If all other provisions of the Minsk accords are observed, there will be no need of bringing in a peacekeeping force, Petro Poroshenko believes

KIEV, September 22. /TASS/. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said on Tuesday he did not rule out that the issue of a peacekeeping contingent in Donbas might fall off if ceasefire was maintained in the region.

"The current ceasefire regime, albeit a fragile one, inspires the hope that the problem of peacekeepers may fall off," he said at a joint news conference with NATO’s Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. "If all other provisions of the Minsk accords are observed, the rationality of (bringing in) a peacekeeping force will fall off."

Kiev has been insisting so far on the essentiality of a peacekeeping mission in the zone of the armed conflict in the country’s east. Ukrainian representative have raised it at all the international conferences.

Poroshenko said, however, the problem remained topical at the moment. "It hasn’t lost sense yet and that’s why we’ll discuss it in New York."