Ukraine Ready To Discuss Possible Joint OSCE-UN Mission In Donbas - Foreign Minister

Ukraine is ready to discuss the possibility of a joint international mission in Donbas that includes both the United Nations and Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin said on Wednesday

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 16th January, 2019) Ukraine is ready to discuss the possibility of a joint international mission in Donbas that includes both the United Nations and Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin said on Wednesday.

"The representatives of OSCE who are working on the Minsk regulations proposed creating a united mission with the UN and OSCE. This joint mission should have a military component, a police component, and an international administration," Klimkin said during a press conference, adding that Kiev was ready to discuss this option.

Ukraine is promoting the deployment of UN peacekeeping troops to Donbas. Russian President Vladimir Putin has said earlier that he supported the idea of sending peacekeepers to Donbas, but only for the purpose of guaranteeing the safety of OSCE workers.

Kiev argues that the UN mission should be bigger in scale and cover the whole territory of the Donbas region up until the Russian border.

The conflict in Donbas started in 2014, when Ukrainian authorities launched a military operation against the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk people's republics, which refused to recognize the new government in Kiev that came to power after what they considered to be a coup.

In February 2015, the warring parties signed the Minsk peace accords to end the hostilities in the region, but the situation has remained tense, with both sides accusing each other of ceasefire violations.