Some member states pulling out observers from Ukraine: OSCE

Refugees arrive at the airport of northeastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv on January 13, 2015.Press TV

As violence continues in Ukraine, Europe’s top security watchdog has said some of its observers are being pulled out of eastern Ukraine.

“Some member states have temporarily withdrawn their monitors from the Lugansk and Donetsk regions,” Michael Bociurkiw, the spokesman for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), said on Wednesday.  

Russia’s OSCE ambassador, Andrei Kelin, said some Western countries were withdrawing observers for safety considerations, adding, “Specialists are currently analyzing how to improve the security situation.”

Bociurkiw said the organization had 374 international monitors in Ukraine, including 217 in the east.

The body’s unarmed civilian mission is monitoring a ceasefire between Ukrainian government troops and pro-Russians.

In a statement posted on the organization’s official website on Tuesday, Eurtugrul Apakan, the chief monitor of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine, voiced alarm over the deteriorating situation in Ukraine’s restive east, urging the warring sides to exercise restraint.

The chief monitor called for “a full and immediate ceasefire and de-escalation,” encouraging both sides “to cooperate with the OSCE and to enhance the implementation of” the truce deal signed last September in the Belarusian capital, Minsk.

Ukraine’s mainly Russian-speaking regions of Donetsk and Lugansk in the east have witnessed deadly clashes between pro-Russia forces and the Ukrainian army since Kiev launched military operations to silence pro-Russia protests in mid-April 2014.

The latest figures released by the United Nations suggest that more than 4,700 people have been killed in the fighting so far.

Kiev and its Western allies accuse neighboring Russia of having a hand in the chaotic situation in eastern Ukraine. Moscow has denied the allegation.

HN/HSN/SS

http://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2015/01/14/393067/Ukraine-monitors-being-pulled-out

One thought on “Some member states pulling out observers from Ukraine: OSCE

  1. Guess what? The American people should stop observing Ukraine too, because Ukraine DOESN’T MATTER.

    Foreign affairs can be interesting when things are okay here at home, but we have bigger domestic problems than the Ukrainians, the Palestinians, the Afghans, and every other piece of foreign trash that dominates the headlines these days. It’s just another form of “reality TV” being broadcast to distract Americans from the theft of their nation.

    Here’s some more news: Charlie Hebdo doesn’t matter. Whatever the hell happened in the Kosher Deli doesn’t matter. The entire city of Paris doesn’t matter, and most of all, Dennis Rodman’s gay sex affair with Kim Jong Un matters least of all, but even the “alternative news”, which boasts about being more significant than the Zionist news gets sidetracked by these things while we still haven’t shown Americans what the hell is happening here.

    Maybe the “alternative news” should start reporting on something other than the mainstream news.

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