The OSCE has said it still has no concrete demands made of it for the release of two teams of monitors seized in Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Ukraine, despite reports of their release.
“No, we have received no demands so far,” Press Secretary of the OSCE
special monitoring mission in Ukraine Michael Bociurkiw said a briefing
in Kyiv on Monday.
Bociurkiw said he remains optimistic that negotiations and the help
of Ukrainian authorities would soon secure the monitors’ release without
no bids.
“We’re engaged in dialogue on a wide number of levels to get our colleagues back to base,” he added.
The situation with security in the east of Ukraine isn’t stable, so
the OSCE is going to change a format of its mission in Ukraine,
Bociurkiw stressed.
As of June 2, the mission comprises 294 monitors.
Previously OSCE reported it had lost contact with one of its monitoring teams operating in Donetsk region on late May 26.
The second group of the OSCE monitors disappeared on May 29 on the
roadblock near Severodonetsk in Luhansk region. Under the recent
reports, they have been seized by the gunmen.
The mission said that the first team consisted of four people –
citizens of Estonia, Switzerland, Turkey and Denmark. Another group
consisted of four monitors and one interpreter.
