Brussels - U.S. Ambassador to the OSCE Daniel Baer has said he is disappointed that Russia has agreed to accept international observers only at two small checkpoints on the border with Ukraine, according to a statement released by the U.S. representative on Thursday, July 24.
“The U.S. finds it deeply regrettable that the Russian Federation was
only willing to take the minimal steps provided for in this decision,”
Baer said.
He said that “despite questions and requests from other participating
states to expand the geographic scope of the observer mission, Russia
would only accept a limited-scope mission, covering just two border
checkpoints – which account for approximately one kilometer of the 2,300
kilometer border.”
“We are therefore concerned that due to Russia’s undue restrictions
of its work, the mission will be unable to provide a real accounting of
the scope of Russia’s flows of illegal arms, funding, and personnel to
support the separatists in eastern Ukraine or any meaningful assurance
that Russia is acting to stop the illegal flow of arms and other support
to separatists in eastern Ukraine,” Baer said.
At the same time, OSCE Chairperson-in-Office and Swiss President
Didier Burkhalter said that the decision on the deployment of observers
at checkpoints on the Russian-Ukrainian border was aimed at building
confidence between the sides.
He said that “further and broader measures will be necessary in order
to have borders effectively secured by competent authorities.”
“Reliable border control is a key element in a bigger set of measures to bring back stability in Ukraine,” Burkhalter said.
He said that political will by all sides and meaningful dialogue
remained indispensable to develop cooperative solutions to resolve this
crisis.
