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Ukrainian president, US top diplomat discuss East Ukraine

Pyotr Poroshenko and Rex Tillerson coordinated further steps for the deployment of an international UN mission on the occupied part of Donbass

MOSCOW, November 5. /TASS/. Ukrainian President Pyotr Poroshenko and US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson have held a phone conversation to discuss the deployment of the UN mission in eastern Ukraine, the Ukrainian president’s press service said on Saturday.

"The interlocutors coordinated further steps for the deployment of an international UN mission on the occupied part of Donbass," the press service said in a statement, adding that the mission will be deployed in areas on the Ukrainian-Russian border not controlled by Kiev.

Tillerson also told Poroshenko that Assistant Secretary of State for Europe and Eurasia Wess Mitchell planned to visit Ukraine in November.

On September 5, by the order of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Russia’s UN mission sent a draft resolution to international organization on deploying the UN mission along the Donbass contact line to provide safety for the OSCE SMM members. Putin stressed that the mission’s deployment would be only possible in case of agreement of the self-proclaimed Lugansk and Donetsk People’s Republics and withdrawal of weapons by the conflicting parties under the Minsk accords. Kiev stated that Ukraine does not favor the format of the peacekeeping mission in Donbass proposed by the Russian president and insists that the UN contingent should be deployed along the Russian-Ukrainian border first.