Political will exhibited by all conflicting parties in southeastern Ukraine can help fulfill the Minsk agreements and the consensual shift of their deadlines will not hinder the peace process, OSCE Secretary General Lamberto Zannier has said.

He said in an interview published by the newspaper Kommersant on Monday that he was cautiously optimistic and that the ceasefire agreement had been largely honored since September 1.

OSCE monitors have observed a limited number of ceasefire violations in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions and most of those incidents involved small arms, he said.

The OSCE Secretary General said that it would take time to implement all 13 clauses of the Minsk agreements, and that different matters were being discussed simultaneously.

Progress made in one area may eventually slow down and debates on other issues may start, he said.

The relative calm has enabled some people to return home and infrastructure to be partially repaired, Zannier said.

The ceasefire agreement also created a more favorable atmosphere for political negotiations and dialogue, which are required for moving on, but the need for a fuller, comprehensive ceasefire remains, he said, adding that only the complete fulfillment of all Minsk provisions, including the political ones, will bring about lasting peace.

As to the possibility of moving the Minsk agreements' deadlines beyond 2015, the OSCE Secretary General said that local elections in southeastern Ukraine might be held in February and that this could influence the general timeframe of the agreements.

He said he was confident that a consensual shift of the deadlines would not hinder the resolution of the conflict in the event that all sides exhibited political will sufficient for implementing every provision of the Minsk agreements.

The newspaper asked whether the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights would be monitoring local elections in the event that Kyiv, the DPR and the LPR agreed upon the ballot date. This is provided for by the Minsk agreements, Zannier said.

Before deploying any mission, the OSCE/ODIHR needs to be absolutely sure that monitors will be able to observe the elections freely, without an escort, have access to the entire electoral process and, most importantly, have their security guaranteed, he said.