Russia to take part in emergency OSCE meeting on situation in Ukraine
28 April 2014, 16:44 -- Russia will send its representatives to Monday's emergency meeting by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe to discuss the release of the organization's monitors detained in eastern Ukraine last week. An OSCE spokeswoman, Tatyana Bayeva, earlier said that the meeting of the organization's Permanent Council will focus on current security challenges in OSCE states and OSCE's cooperation with Ukraine.
She said all 57 member states will attend the event, organized on the initiative of OSCE's current chair Switzerland, to exchange views and make decisions.
'We will take part,' Russia's permanent envoy to OSCE, Andrei Kelin, said, RIA reports.
Russia, Germany discuss OSCE observers' detention in Ukraine's Slavyansk
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and his German counterpart Frank-Walter Steinmeier discussed on Monday the detention in Ukraine of observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the Russian Foreign Ministry said. The ministry gave no further details of the call, which it said was a German initiative.
Chancellor Angela Merkel's spokesman Steffen Seibert said Berlin condemned the detention of the team, which includes four Germans, calling it 'against the law and without justification'.
The release of one of the eight hostages on medical grounds was 'a positive step' but the other seven must also be freed 'immediately, unconditionally and unharmed', said Seibert.
Earlier on Monday, Germany urged Moscow to use its influence on pro-federalization supporters in eastern Ukraine to secure the release of observers from the OSCE who are being held in the city of Slavyansk, Reuters reports.
OSCE hopes for Moscow's support in release of military inspectors in Ukraine's Slavyansk
The head of the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs, Didier Burkhalter, who is the current Chairperson-in-office of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), has condemned the capture of a group of military inspectors from the OSCE member states and called for their immediate release.
'The release of one of the military inspectors for health reasons is a positive step,' the OSCE said in a statement, Interfax reports. 'The OSCE continues working at all levels with the help of the special monitoring mission in Ukraine and through high-level political contacts so as to secure the release of all the captured individuals,' he said. 'At the same time we are expecting Russia to send important signals of support which could rapidly lead to progress in this respect.'
Burkhalter has also thanked international partners for their support of the OSCE in the effort to release the captured inspectors.
'All the parties, which signed the Geneva agreement, should actively facilitate the creation of the conditions that would enable the efficient implementation of the Geneva measures,' the OSCE chairperson said.
Detained OSCE observer released in Ukraine's Slavyansk
One of the eight European observers being detained by self-defense activists in the eastern Ukraine city of Slavyansk on Sunday evening was escorted to an Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe vehicle and driven away. The two negotiators and the Swedish military inspector boarded a white car with an OSCE logo on it and drove away without any comment to reporters.
The spokesperson for the self-defense activists in Slavyanks said that the observer was released on medical grounds. 'He has a mild form of diabetes and so we decided to let him go,' she told reporters.
Slavyansk self-defense presents detained OSCE team to media
Self-defense activists in Ukraine's eastern town of Slavyansk on Sunday presented the eight detained European members of an international OSCE military observer mission to a news conference. The eight men, all apparently unhurt, were led into the main room of Slavyansk's town hall occupied by the anti-Maidan movement, where around 60 journalists were assembled, AFP reports.
At a news conference organized by the self-defense forces, a German member of the observer mission, Colonel Axel Schneider, told reporters he had 'not been touched,' and that there had been no physical mistreatment of the group.
'All the European officers are in good health and no one is sick,' Reuters reports.
OSCE sending team to Slavyansk to seek release of military observers
The OSCE said Sunday that a team of negotiators is heading to Slavyansk in eastern Ukraine to try and secure the release of eight military monitors held by self-defense forces. 'They are expected to be in the region Sunday,' Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe spokesperson Tatyana Baeva said.
'We hope to be able to provide more information once they arrive and when they start talking, if they start talking,' she said, AFP reports.
She was unable to say how many negotiators were heading to the flashpoint eastern town, where the four Germans, one Pole, one Czech, one Swede and one Dane were detained on Friday together with five Ukrainians.
The negotiators being sent form part of a separate, 100-strong special monitoring mission by the Vienna-based pan-European security body who are already on the ground in Ukraine.
Russia, a member of the OSCE, pledged Saturday to 'take all possible' steps to secure their release.
OSCE observers report false purpose of visit – Slavyansk people's mayor
The European military observers detained by self-defense forces in the eastern Ukrainian city of Slavyansk were not who they claimed to be and reported a false purpose of the visit, Vyacheslav Ponomarev, the people's mayor of Slavyansk, said on Saturday, April 26. The detainees said they 'have come on a sightseeing tour' but had a map marking the militia's positions, he said.
'When they asked about the purpose of their visit, they said they had come for a sightseeing tour. In other words, they gave false information from the very beginning,' Ponomarev said, adding that they had a map indicating the militia's positions.
'Let me tell you that the map alone would be enough to speak about spying,' he said.
'The military were on our territory without our permission and were detained of course,' he said.
'What we should do with them we will know after we have determined who they are and what brought them here," Ponomarev said, adding that the detainees were being held in 'normal conditions'. 'One of the military officials has diabetes, but we have necessary medications and food (for him).'
Ponomarev said the supporters of federalisation were ready to exchange the detained military for their comrades being held by the Kiev authorities.
'The Kiev junta is holding our comrades. But we are ready for an exchange if there is such a chance,' he said.
Yevgeny Gorbik, a spokesperson for the supporters of federalization, told reporters that the detained military observers had been engaged in intelligence activities, TASS reports.
'The humanitarian group of the (OSCE) mission has denied any relation to them… They (observers) had intelligence agents, cryptograms, and notebooks with secret notes', Gorbik said. 'A Bulgarian officer had a notebook with notes in Russian which confirm his intelligence activities and speak of a meeting with agents,' he added.
'No charges have been brought against them so far. But they've ended up in a company that calls into question the legitimacy of their activities,' Gorbik said, adding, 'The investigation is underway to find out what they were doing and where.'
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