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Ukraine, US coordinate main points of resolution on peacekeepers in Donbass

The Kiev government’s claim that there should be no Russians in the peacekeeping contingent and that the peacekeepers should take control of the Ukrainian-Russian border

KIEV, November 11. /TASS/. Ukraine has coordinated with the U.S. the main parameters of a joint draft resolution of the UN Security Council on the deployment of peacekeepers in Donbas, Foreign Minister Pavel Klimkin said on Friday night speaking on Inter television channel.

"I spoke to the U.S. special envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker a few hours ago and we coordinated the main parameters of our position," Klimkin said. "We actually have a text of the resolution, our draft. I’m saying ‘our’ because it’s the U.S., Germany, France, and we’re also working with the UK along the lines of a very clear logic.

He repeated the Kiev government’s claim that there should be no Russians in the peacekeeping contingent and that the peacekeepers should take control of the Ukrainian-Russian border.

The Wall Street Journal said on Thursday Washington was planning to hand to Russia a scheme for deployment of a 20,000-strong international peacekeeping contingent in the war-torn eastern Ukraine soon. It also said U.S. and other Western diplomats believed this mission might operate under the umbrella of the OSCE rather than the UN.

On September 5, the Russian mission to the UN forwarded a draft resolution on deploying peacekeepers along the Line of Contact in Donbass to the UN Secretary General and the President of the Security Council. The document presumed that the peacekeepers would bolster security of members of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission.

President Putin, who instructed the diplomats to send the draft resolution, said deployment of a UN contingent would be possible only after a pullback of weaponry from the Line of Contact and on the condition of consent from the self-proclaimed unrecognized Donetsk and Lugansk republics.

Kiev said right after that it was discontent with the format of the mission proposed by Putin and it was insisting on the deployment of a ‘peacekeeping force’ along the Ukrainian-Russian border.