Ukraine Contact Group to hold peace talks in Minsk
Ukraine’s trilateral Contact Group is expected to hold a meeting in the Belarusian capital, Minsk, in an effort to coordinate further steps for the implementation of previously-reached peace accords.
The Contact Group, comprising of the representatives of the Ukrainian government, Russia, and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), is trying to hold a meeting later on Tuesday, in a bid to restore peace accords reached in September 2014 and February 2015 and help end the deadly conflict between the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk republics in eastern Ukraine and government forces.
Last week, presidents Vladimir Putin of Russia and Francois Hollande of France and Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel, held a telephone discussion regarding possible additional steps toward enforcing a truce and the deescalation of the conflict.
“I am confident the main thing is to focus on the central element of the Minsk accords, and that's the establishing direct dialogue between Kiev and (the self-defence forces in) Donetsk and Lugansk," said Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, on Monday, after talks with his Italian counterpart Paolo Gentiloni. “There is no resolving a single problem without it.”
"We pin certain hopes on the meeting of working subgroups in Minsk, in the course of which steps towards a further deescalation of the military and political situation and prevention of possible breakdowns of the ceasefire," he added.
The contact group has been holding meetings in Minsk since August 2014. The talks have resulted in some agreements on resolving the crisis in eastern Ukraine, including a previous ceasefire deal on September 5 last year. The truce has been frequently violated by both the Ukrainian military and pro-Russia forces in east Ukraine.
The two mainly Russian-speaking regions of Donetsk and Lugansk have been the scene of deadly clashes between pro-Russian protesters and the Ukrainian army since Kiev’s military operation started in mid-April in a bid to crush the protests.
According to a new UN report released on Monday, serious human rights violations and abuses persist in eastern Ukraine.
“Between mid-April 2014 and 30 May 2015, at least 6,417 people, including at least 626 women and girls, have been documented as killed and 15,962 as wounded in the conflict zone of eastern Ukraine,” the report reads.
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