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Ukraine’s border service promises to reopen checkpoints in Donbass before Easter

KIEV, April 24. /TASS/. Ukraine will resume the work of crossing points in Donbass for the Easter holidays only if shelling in stopped, press secretary of Ukraine’s State Border Service Oleg Slobodin said on Sunday.

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Ukrainian military shell 186 mines on Gorlovka, Donetsk — agency

"We think it will be right to open those checkpoints that are out of service now. The Zaitsevo and Maryinka checkpoints are now working beyond their capacity. However expediency and possibility are two different things, the more so as people’s security is a top priority task," the UNN agency quoted him as saying.

He said the check point in the village of Stanitsa Luganskaya could resume its operation if there is no shelling in the vicinity. "However there is direct threat there, hence there are no grounds to hope that this issue could be settled soon," he said.

At the latest meeting of the Contact Group on Ukrainian settlement on April 20, the humanitarian subgroup discussed the issue of reopening checkpoints in the line of contact in Donbass for the forthcoming Easter holidays.

Martin Sajdik, a representative of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) said after the meeting that "the sides agreed to do everything within their power to enable the people in eastern Ukraine to visit their relatives residing on both sides of the contact line, especially in Ukraine’s Lugansk region, for the time of the forthcoming Easter holidays.".

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