French Foreign Ministry Expresses Concern Over Tensions in Donbass

The French authorities are concerned by the continuing tensions in eastern Ukraine and have urged all parties of the conflict to provide full access to all the region's districts to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE)'s monitoring mission, the French Foreign Ministry's spokesman said Wednesday.

PARIS (Sputnik) — "We are concerned about the tensions that remain locally and urge all the sides to adhere to the ceasefire regime, provided by the Minsk agreements, and we also ask them to guarantee total access to all areas to the OSCE monitors," Alexandre Giorgini said at a briefing.

Giorgini noted that France welcomed the agreement to fully observe a ceasefire regime during the upcoming holidays.

Southeastern Ukraine has been suffering from a crisis triggered by a military operation to suppress local independence supporters launched by Kiev authorities in April 2014 to quell secession moves.

In February, representatives of the central government in Kiev and Donbass independence supporters signed a deal on Ukrainian reconciliation in the Belarusian capital of Minsk.

On Tuesday, the last 2015 meeting of the trilateral Contact Group on conflict resolution in eastern Ukraine, consisting of Ukraine, Russia and OSCE representatives, took place in Minsk. The group agreed on a comprehensive ceasefire, starting on December 23 for the duration of the Christmas and New Year holidays.