MOSCOW, July 15 (RIA Novosti) - Russia’s proposal to place Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) monitors on the Russia-Ukraine border will not be discussed at the OSCE Permanent Council meeting, Swiss OSCE Chairmanship Spokesman Roland Bless told RIA Novosti Tuesday.
Russia’s proposal is “…not at this stage yet. Consultations continue this afternoon in the format of political dialogues,” Bless responded when asked whether the issue was on the agenda for the OSCE Permanent Council meeting on Tuesday.
A decision to send monitors to Russia would require approval by the OSCE’s Permanent Council, which convenes weekly in Vienna. The next meeting of the Permanent Council is scheduled for Thursday.
The Russian Foreign Ministry on Monday announced it had invited OSCE monitors to Russia’s Gukovo and Donetsk border crossings as a goodwill gesture, without waiting for a ceasefire regime to be established, but the initiative met with objections from several delegations, including from the United Kingdom.
Chairperson-in-Office of the OSCE Didier Burkhalter delivered a statement last night, in which he asked all participating nations to contribute constructively and pragmatically to forming an early consensus on the respective mandate. According to Burkhalter, “a needs assessment mission by the OSCE should be deployed as soon as possible in this regard.”
In July, attacks on Russian border checkpoints intensified. In one of the most recent attacks on Sunday, one civilian was killed and two others injured when a shell hit a house in Donetsk, a town in Russia’s Rostov Region. The Russian Foreign Ministry Sunday protested the shelling by Ukraine, calling it a provocation that might have irreversible consequences.
