STRASBOURG (Sputnik) — The crisis in Ukraine needs to be resolved so that Europe does not have another "deep-frozen" conflict on its territory, the president of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) said Friday.
"I hope that we are not going to end up with another frozen conflict, because all of those conflicts that we are speaking – be it in Transnistria or Nagorno-Karabakh – they are not frozen, they are deep frozen," Anne Brasseur told journalists.
Transnistria, a strip of land in eastern Moldova, populated predominantly by Russian speakers, has been operating effectively as an autonomous region since a war in the early 1990s. Meanwhile, Armenia has been locked in a row with Azerbaijan over the mountainous Nagorno-Karabakh area since the 1980s.
Brasseur stressed that freezing conflicts was not a solution as it only harmed the local population.
"I'm really worried about the elections, we are going to assist to separate elections… that would lead to even greater divide of that region," Brasseur said, adding she hoped that a solution to the crisis could be found before the elections take place.
The breakaway regions of Donetsk and Lugansk plan to hold local elections on October 18 and November 1 respectively.
The self-proclaimed republics have repeatedly stated that the decision to hold elections independently from Kiev was made after the Ukrainian government proceeded to adopt a law on local election without consulting with them, which contradicts the Minsk peace deal.
