Chairman of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) Miroslav Lajcak thanked on Thursday Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the Trilateral Contact Group for helping to restore a bridge in the conflict-hit Donbas as well as pointed out the progress in the settlement process
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 05th December, 2019) Chairman of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) Miroslav Lajcak thanked on Thursday Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the Trilateral Contact Group for helping to restore a bridge in the conflict-hit Donbas as well as pointed out the progress in the settlement process.
"We saw progress. In fact, I have just returned from Stanytsia Luhanska. After my first trip there someone told me that it would be a miracle if the bridge [there] could be repaired. But that is exactly what happened. Now people can cross in safety and with dignity, and I really want to thank President Zelenskyy and the government of Ukraine, and I also want to thank the Trilateral Contact Group and the [OSCE] Special Monitoring Mission for helping to make it possible," Lajcak said at the 26th OSCE Ministerial Council in the Slovak capital of Bratislava.
He described the upcoming summit in Paris as a good momentum to keep the Minsk Agreements alive.
"I have asked myself the question: do things look better now than they did in January? Well, in a way yes, because dialogue has continued throughout the year," Lajcak said, assessing the crisis-management efforts of the OSCE on all the conflicts in the region.
Focusing on the situation in Ukraine, Lajcak noted that it was still difficult, with people continuing to suffer and die in the conflict area.
On December 9, Paris will host the summit of the Normandy Four countries - Russia, Ukraine, France and Germany - which are looking for a solution to the conflict in the eastern Ukrainian region of Donbas that erupted in 2014 and slightly de-escalated after Zelenskyy came to power this spring.
