The conflict parties in eastern Ukraine are not providing to monitors full access and the possibility of monitoring observance of the agreements in line with the decision of the Trilateral Contact Group on the separation of forces and equipment on three sections of the disengagement line, OSCE Special Monitoring Mission Principal Deputy Chief Monitor Alexander Hug said.

The monitors have not been provided with full and unimpeded access to these three specific sections and the parties have blocked monitors' access to these sections and were incapable of ensuring their safe access, he told a briefing in Kyiv on Friday. The parties have more than once disrupted attempts made by the OSCE SMM to monitor and verify the three specific sections of the separation of forces and equipment, he said.

OSCE SMM patrols were denied access 16 times last week, Hug said. In all but three of those situations, access was restricted directly on or near those three proposed sections of the separation of forces and equipment, he said. However, this is only the tip of the iceberg because obstruction of the work of the SMM takes place in many forms and obligations to remove all such obstacles were assumed but not fulfilled by the parties, he said.

According to earlier reports, participants in the Trilateral Contact Group signed a framework document on the separation of forces and equipment of the conflict parties in Donbas on three sections on September 21.