OSCE agrees on statement re MH17 crash

World July 18, 2014, 20:17

The idea of “condemning the terrorists that downed the plane” proposed by Ukraine was not included in the final document

VIENNA, July 18. /Mikhail Shcherbakov for ITAR-TASS/. After five hours of consultations, representatives of OSCE member-states have agreed on the statement regarding the crash of Malaysia Airlines’ Boeing in Ukraine.

Spokesperson of the Swiss OSCE Chairmanship Roland Bless reported this after the session of the organization’s Permanent Council.

The document was adopted in the initial edition, and the thesis about “condemning the terrorists that downed the plane” proposed by Ukraine was not included.

In addition, Russia’s Permanent Representative to the OSCE Andrei Kelin said that a paragraph on creating conditions for a sustainable ceasefire was included in the OSCE joint statement on Ukraine.

“Perhaps, it is the first joint document on Ukraine which we have managed to pass since the start of the (Ukraine) crisis. For the first time ever, it contains a provision on the need to urgently create conditions for a long-term ceasefire, which should be quickly coordinated and observed by all the parties (in conflict),” Kelin stressed.

“We hope that it’s going to put an end to violence in Ukraine,” Kelin said.

“The declaration stresses the need to create conditions for the access to the site and surrounding area for the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission, ICAO experts and other international organizations that are going to investigate what happened,” the Russian diplomat added.

“We have asked the local authorities to preserve intact all the pieces of equipment, fragments, personal belongings and other things so as to preserve the crash site in a proper state. Besides, the joint declaration contains a call to launching an international independent and transparent investigation in cooperation with ICAO and participation of representatives of Ukraine, Malaysia and the Netherlands,” Russia’s OSCE representative said, noting that none of the OSCE countries had agreed to Ukraine’s proposal to include the condemnation of “terrorists who shot the plane down” in the declaration’s text and automatically shift the blame to the self-defense forces of the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics.

Meanwhile, a group of 30 observers of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) have reached the Malaysian Boeing’s crash site in the Donetsk region, OSCE spokesperson Tatyana Bayeva reported on Friday.

Their task would be to gather facts and watch the situation in the crash areas.

The OSCE observers are expected to stay in Donetsk and travel to the crash site when necessary.

Malaysia Airlines’ Boeing 777 en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur crashed Thursday evening on the territory of Ukraine, in the Donetsk region near the Grabovo village. The plane carried 298 people, all of them died.

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