OSCE Secretary General seeks EU backing for scaled up monitoring mission in Ukraine

BRUSSELS, 16 April 2014 - OSCE Secretary General Lamberto Zannier is seeking EU support for scaling up the Organization’s Special Monitoring Mission in Ukraine to ensure objective fact-finding as the situation on the ground continues to deteriorate.

Meeting leaders of the EU External Action Service in Brussels today, Zannier expressed his concerns at the developments in the east of the country and underlined the importance of OSCE monitoring, while appealing to all sides to refrain from violence and calling for engagement in dialogue.

“What we are seeing in the eastern part of Ukraine is extremely troubling. The neutral observation and factual reporting carried out by OSCE monitors contributes to creating conditions for de-escalating this dangerous situation,” he said.

The Special Monitoring Mission has been working throughout Ukraine for the past fortnight after its deployment was agreed by the 57 OSCE participating States. Its aim is to monitor events all over the country and gather neutral information, contributing to reducing tensions. Around one hundred monitors are currently deployed in Kherson, Odesa, Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk, Kharkiv, Donetsk, Dnipropetrovsk, Chernivtsi, Luhansk and Kyiv.