UNITED NATIONS, September 22. /ITAR-TASS/. The secretary general of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) on Sunday warned the sides in the conflict in eastern Ukraine against using ceasefire for trying to gain advantages.
“The ceasefire can not become an occasion to try to gain advantages because if you do that the all thing will collapse,” OSCE Secretary General Lamberto Zannier said on Sunday.
“All in all the ceasefire seems to be holding but there are violations, and of course we deeply deplore these violations,” Zannier said after talks with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.
He said the OSCE was doing its best to see the truce holding and de-escalation of the crisis achieved on the basis of the agreements reached in Minsk last week. “This is now the beginning of the solution to the problem. So that’s why we should invest,” Lamberto Zannier said.
He said about 80 OSCE observers are deployed in Ukraine at the moment. “We want to recruit 500. We are in the process. We need to buy cars etc, so it is the logistics, but we already have quite a few offers of staff,” the OSCE secretary general said.
He said he had discussed the developments in Ukraine with Ban ki-Moon. “He also is very concerned but he is also very supportive. I think we share very much the assessment of the situation and the assessment of what is needed for the way forward. We need to be sure that everybody sees it the same way,” he added.
The UN press service quoted the UN secretary general as commenting the OSCE “for its key role in peace and security in Europe and in particular for its strong commitment to support a peaceful solution to the Ukrainian crisis”.
On September 5, the trilateral Contact Group on Ukraine (Russia, Ukraine and the OSCE) and representatives of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Lugansk People’s republics reached an agreement on ceasefire in Ukraine’s embattled southeast, troops withdrawal, exchange of prisoners and provision of humanitarian aid.
On Friday, the Contact Group signed a memorandum outlining the parameters for the implementation of the cease-fire commitments laid down in the Minsk Protocol of September 5.