The European Union can convene on Tuesday a special meeting of the EU Political and Security Committee in order to discuss the situation in the Sea of Azov, Austrian Foreign Minister Karin Kneissl told Sputnik on Monday
BRUSSELS (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 26th November, 2018) The European Union can convene on Tuesday a special meeting of the EU Political and Security Committee in order to discuss the situation in the Sea of Azov, Austrian Foreign Minister Karin Kneissl told Sputnik on Monday.
"We are currently putting together different pieces of information, [in order to understand] what has happened. Austrian representatives have requested to hold a meeting of the EU Political and Security Committee tomorrow in order to formulate a common European position," Kneissl said.
"I have tasked my secretary of state to contact both the Russian ambassador and the Ukrainian ambassador in order to voice our concerns, and to say that we are making effort toward de-escalation," she added.
Kneissl added that she could not currently provide any more comment.
"Everyone is trying to puzzle out what has happened, and who has done what, in order to reconstruct the real situation," Kneissl said.
She went on to voice Austrian concern over the situation.
On Sunday, three ships of the Ukrainian Navy, in violation of Articles 19 and 21 of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, crossed the Russian sea border, entered the temporarily closed area of the Russian territorial waters, and were moving from the Black Sea toward the Kerch Strait, according to the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB).
The FSB later said that the same three ships of the Ukrainian Navy � Berdyansk, Nikopol and Yany Kapu � had been detained after violating Russian state border. The Ukrainian ships did not react to legal demands of the ships accompanying them and made dangerous maneuvers, the FSB noted.
