OSCE military observers visits to Crimea must be sanctioned by Crimean authorities, not Russia - FM
10 March 2014, 18:09 -- The Russian Foreign Ministry has expressed surprise at US envoy to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe Daniel Baer's call on Russia to facilitate the OSCE military observers' unrestricted movement in the Crimea.
'The wording of the call which has apparently been referred to the wrong address, is quite surprising. Our position is that any of the OSCE's monitoring activity must be agreed upon with the legitimate Crimean authorities,' the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a commentary circulated in Moscow on Monday.
'Another surprising thing is that Mr. Baer has not mentioned the fact that this issue has been discussed in the OSCE framework already. It is true that some of the OSCE's member-countries have sent their military observers to Ukraine at the request of the Kiev regime. In this connection, the Russian side officially informed all of the OSCE member-states back on March 5 that it has not allowed visits to the Russian military installations located in the Crimea, given the current force-majeure circumstances,' the Russian Foreign Ministry said.
'We hope the American diplomats will pay more attention to truly dangerous and unpredictable incidents, including the uncontrollable spreading of weapons and ammunition which the militants have stolen from ammunition depots, and also to reports about several dozen missing Igla portable surface-to-air missile systems,' it said.
Russia also prepared proposals for the settlement of the situation in Ukraine, with due regard for the deep political crisis Ukraine has found itself in.
"We are not passive while receiving our colleagues' proposals, and we have prepared our own proposals on that score. They are aimed at bringing the situation in Ukraine into the international law framework, taking into account the interests of all Ukrainians without exception and with due regard for the deep political crisis Ukraine is facing now," Lavrov said.
As he noted, the US proposals to resolve the crisis in Ukraine are based on the assumed conflict between Moscow and Kiev, and that is what Russian government cannot agree with.
'The US Secretary of State John Kerry last Friday handed me the paper that I have already made public. There is a concept in this document that we are not quite happy with, because everything has been formulated like there is some kind of conflict between Russia and Ukraine, like we admit certain facts really exist,' Lavrov said at a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The foreign partners proposed to start from the situation created by this coup, and to take steps that they deem appropriate under these circumstances.
Russia prepared for US counter measures to solve Ukrainian political crisis - Lavrov
Russian Federation has prepared for the US counter measures to reduce tensions in Ukraine, Sergey Lavrov said Monday.
He also stated that OSCE military observers visits to Crimea must be sanctioned by Crimean authorities and Russia has nothing to do with it.
Moscow also hopes that US diplomats draw their attention to uncontrolled distribution of weapons stolen by Ukrainian gang members.
Voice of Russia, RIA
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