Working Groups on Ukraine Should Begin Meeting Immediately

US Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov agreed that working groups under the Trilateral Contact Group should begin meeting immediately, according to a statement of a US State Department senior official.

 

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — US Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov agreed in a phone conversation that working groups under the Trilateral Contact Group on Ukraine should begin working shortly, a US State Department senior official said in a statement on Thursday.

“In a telephone call on April 22, Secretary Kerry discussed Ukraine with Foreign Minister Lavrov, urging Russia to press the separatists to abide by the ceasefire, allow full access for OSCE monitors and admit OSCE specialists to conduct a pre-electoral survey, as provided in the Minsk agreements,” the official said. “They agreed that working groups under the Trilateral Contact Group should begin meeting immediately.”

The Trilateral Contact Group on Ukraine, which includes representatives of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), Russia and Ukraine, aims at facilitating a diplomatic solution to the conflict in eastern Ukraine.

The OSCE mission is overseeing the implementation of the ceasefire agreement and pullout of heavy artillery in eastern Ukraine in accordance with the deal reached by the conflicting sides to the Ukraine crisis in Minsk in February.

On February, 12, 2015, a new ceasefire agreement was reached in Minsk by the leaders of Russia, Ukraine, France and Germany. The Minsk deal included a ceasefire, the withdrawal of heavy weapons from the line of contact between the Kiev forces and independence supporters as well as amendments to the Ukrainian constitution.

The OSCE Special Monitoring Mission was first deployed to all regions of Ukraine in March 2014 before its mandate was extended until March 2016.