OSCE SMM may participate in monitoring at Ukrainian checkpoints in Donbas, border with Crimea
The Ukrainian State Border Service launches a pilot project for involving monitors of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) in the monitoring of the situation at entry/exit checkpoints along the contact line in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions and on the administrative border with Crimea.
This issue was discussed Friday at a coordinating inter-agency meeting involving the country's Border Service, Foreign Ministry, Security Service, Anti-Terrorist Headquarters at the Ukrainian Security Council, General Headquarters, National Guard and the OSCE SMM in Ukraine, the State Border Service's press service said.
"The meeting's goal was to discuss the possibility of attracting OSCE SMM experts to the monitoring of the situation at entry/exit checkpoints along the contact line in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions and on the administrative border with the Autonomous Republic of Crimea," the press service said.
It was said at the meeting that the deployment of the activity of the OSCE SMM monitors at checkpoints, their unbiased and independent activity, would allow for the provision of an objective assessment of the situation along the contact line in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions and on the administrative border with Crimea.
All participants in the meeting backed an initiative proposal, which the State Border Service had made over co-operation with the OSCE SMM experts at checkpoints. Upon the results of the meeting a mechanism of actions taken to implement the pilot project for the involvement of the OSCE SMM monitors in Ukraine in said monitoring will be practiced.
Meanwhile, head of the OSCE SMM operations department in Ukraine Georgios Pokas said that the special mission was interested in and supported the border service's proposal to expand the scope of its activity at entry/exit checkpoints along the contact line in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions and on the administrative border with Crimea and was also ready to study the issue of increasing the personnel working in east Ukraine.
In addition, the OSCE SMM representatives said they were interested in the issue of creating humanitarian logistic centers for the needs of civilians in Donbas.
