You're reading: OSCE offers to help finance disarmament in Ukraine

 The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe is offering to set up a fund to finance the implementation of a proposed disarmament plan in Ukraine, OSCE Chairperson-in-Office Didier Burkhalter announced at a joint news conference on May 7 with Russian President Vladimir Putin. As regards a proposed pan-national dialogue in Ukraine to precede the planned presidential election on May 25, Burkhalter said the OSCE is suggesting a series of roundtables and discussions between officials, politicians and activists in central Ukraine and the provinces as the starting point of a pan-national discussion.

 He argued that proposals for the decentralization of government and security issues should be the main items on the agenda. He confirmed that the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights would send up to 1,000 observers to the presidential polls.

In another comment on the current violence in eastern Ukraine, he insisted that top Ukrainian leaders and senior figures at lower tiers of government declare violence to be unacceptable and to take measures to end it.

He also said the OSCE is proposing a crisis settlement roadmap comprising four points – a ceasefire, de-escalation of tensions, dialogue, and elections. He said that within hours the roadmap would be put before Russian, Ukrainian, U.S. and European Union diplomats who are meeting for quadrilateral talks in Geneva.