Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz urged the sides to the conflict in eastern Ukrainian region of Donbas to adhere to the truce for the new school year, which entered into force on Wednesday, and to work on the fulfillment of the Minsk peace accords.
VIENNA (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 29th August, 2018) Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz urged the sides to the conflict in eastern Ukrainian region of Donbas to adhere to the truce for the new school year, which entered into force on Wednesday, and to work on the fulfillment of the Minsk peace accords.
"I am glad about the truce that was agreed ahead of the new school year in eastern Ukraine and urge all parties to adhere to it and continue to work toward the implementation of the Minsk agreements. The OSCE [Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe] is doing an important job, which we fully support," Kurz said on Twitter.
Alexander Hug, the principal deputy chief monitor of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine (OSCE SMM), said on Wednesday that the mission had registered over 70 ceasefire violations in the conflict-torn region of Donbas overnight, and urged the conflicting sides to cease hostilities.
The conflict in Donbas started in 2014, when Ukrainian authorities launched a military operation against the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk people's republics that refused to recognize the new government in Kiev, which 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 parties accusing each other of ceasefire breaches.
The new truce was agreed on by the Contact Group on Ukraine, comprised of representatives from Ukraine, Russia and the OSCE, on August 22.
