Renewed truce in eastern Ukraine holding: OSCE
The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), which monitors the ceasefire in eastern Ukraine, says the renewed truce in the restive areas has been respected since the beginning of this month.
“So the ceasefire now has been holding for more than 10 days and that’s good news, because that is opening now the space to make progress on a political level,” OSCE Secretary General Lamberto Zannier told The Associated Press on Saturday.
Zannier added that he had visited the city of Mariupol and the town of Shyrokyne in eastern Ukraine and found the situation to be calm there.
Back in February, the Ukrainian government and pro-Russia forces reached the truce agreement, dubbed Minsk II, at a summit attended by the leaders of Russia, France and Germany in the Belarusian capital city of Minsk.
However, clashes raged on in the two mainly Russian-speaking regions of Donetsk and Lugansk, with both parties accusing each other of breaking the ceasefire on numerous occasions.
The warring sides pledged anew to implement the Minsk agreement on September 1.
Under the Minsk peace deal, the regions run by pro-Russians must conduct local polls by the end of 2015.
The meeting came as leaders of Germany, France, Russia and Ukraine are expected to meet again over the crisis in Ukraine at a summit in Paris on 2 October.
Donetsk and Lugansk have witnessed deadly clashes between pro-Moscow forces and the Ukrainian army since Kiev launched military operations in April last year to crush pro-Russia protests there.
About 8,000 people have been killed in the Ukrainian conflict, according to the UN.
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