A special meeting of the OSCE Permanent Council in Vienna on Tuesday will consider proposals to increase the strength of, and allocate additional funding for, the organization's monitoring mission in Ukraine, Swiss Foreign Minister and Chairperson-in-Office Didier Burkhalter has said.
“To assist Ukraine in implementing measures mentioned in the Geneva
Statement, further specialized expertise would have to be made
available, as well as funding to allow for a swift build-up of the
mission,” he said on Tuesday.
He said that the proposals would be considered at a special meeting of the Permanent Council in Vienna on April 22.
Last week, the foreign ministers of Russia, the United States, the EU
and Ukraine agreed on a statement on how to overcome the crisis in
Ukraine.
Burkhalter said he was “concerned by reports referring to worsening
situations in some regions, including violent incidents with hostage
taking.”
He called on the “Ukrainian authorities to re-double their efforts to
plan, prepare, and start the implementation of the various measures
decided upon in the Geneva Statement.”
“It is absolutely crucial to keep the momentum to be able to benefit
from the positive dynamic created by the accord in Geneva,” Burkhalter
said.
He said that “political will on all levels – national, regional, and local – was key to overcoming stalemates.”
The OSCE chair urged the “European Union, the Russian Federation and
the United States to lend full support to the work of the Ukrainian
authorities and local communities as well as to the Special Monitoring
Mission.”
