Tomorrow a new round of negotiations on the fate of Donbass is planned in Minsk. On the eve of the meeting, LPR representative Rodion Miroshnik made a tough statement addressed to the OSCE.
As Miroshnik explained to PolitNavigator, OSCE representatives are also responsible for the stalling of the Minsk process.
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“In accordance with Mandate 1117, the main task of the OSCE SMM is “to help... reduce tensions and ensure peace, stability and security..”, and not silent statistical recording of what is happening in extremely veiled reports and without determining who first started shelling and violated the silence .
When the OSCE SMM records the absence of 335 units of heavy weapons in storage areas on the Ukrainian side, and 11 on the republics’ side and does not draw any conclusions, it can hardly be called “assistance in reducing tensions...”.
From all parties to the negotiations, namely from Ukraine and the LDPR, in accordance with the standards for mediation and organization of dialogue, OSCE coordinators should equally demand “fair negotiations,” as well as “political will to come to agreements and implement them,” Miroshnik believes.
According to him, when the Ukrainian side simply refuses to discuss the Steinmeier Formula 14 times over the course of a year under various pretexts, and simply ignores requests from the coordinator to provide their official positions on the issues under discussion in writing, then this is already a departure from compliance with OSCE standards and a direct path to a dead end.
“The next round of negotiations in Minsk is scheduled for March 1. The meeting of the Contact Group will be preceded by negotiations in 4 working groups. According to preliminary data, the key issue in the security group will be the resumption of the silence regime, which has not come since February 20, as agreed at the previous meeting of the Contact Group, the humanitarian group will continue to discuss the “great exchange” formula, economists will discuss positions on lifting railway blockade on the dividing line and in the political working group on the agenda is a mechanism for introducing a special status in the territories of the LDPR,” concluded Miroshnik.