18 Feb 2020 10:44

Security corridor under OSCE oversight is way of ensuring control over border with Russia in Donbas - Ukrainian FM

KYIV. Feb 18 (Interfax) - The creation of a security corridor under the supervision of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) is one of the possible ways for Ukrainian border guards to ensure control over the border with Russia in Donbas, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Vadym Prystaiko said.

"It is Ukrainian border guards who ought to control the Ukrainian border on the Ukrainian side. This is a matter of principle. We must stand by it. This is the ideal option on which both the government, the president, and all others are working. In such a way, we will come to this option - via this unideal path to this ideal option - possibly the option that, for example, was proposed in the first Minsk document back in 2014, when it was stated that a security corridor under the oversight of the OSCE would be set up along the Ukrainian-Russian official border. To our great regret, most people have forgotten that such an agreement was reached, and in this context our talks are not making progress," Prystaiko told the Svoboda Slova program on the Ukrainian TV channel ICTV.

The matter that is being discussed presently is "the viability of the idea" of forming "joint patrols" across the entire militia-controlled territory that would consist of Ukraine's National Police and representatives of the OSCE and local authorities, he said.