OSCE was 'irresponsible' to send monitors to East Ukraine - Russia
28 April 2014, 21:11 -- A Russian ambassador said on Monday it had been 'extremely irresponsible' to send military monitors from the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe to eastern Ukraine, where they were detained by pro-Russian supporters last week. Andrey Kelin, Moscow's ambassador to the Vienna-based OSCE, said however it would be a good step towards easing the conflict to release the seven European monitors, who are being held in the city of Slavyansk.
Asked what Russia was doing to help achieve that, Kelin told reporters: 'We are doing some steps, not only by statements, but also in practice.' He gave no further details.
A senior US diplomat called on Russia to secure the 'unconditional and immediate release' of the German-led team.
'We remain disappointed that senior officials in Moscow have not condemned the abduction - nor have they demanded the team's immediate release,' Gary Robbins, deputy head of the U.S. mission to the OSCE, told an extraordinary meeting of the 57-nation European security body.
The captives - from Germany, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Poland and Sweden - were paraded before reporters on Sunday and said they were in good health.
Kelin said people in eastern Ukraine were under the 'threat of military operation', making clear he meant by the Kiev government which he suggested had some 11,000 troops as well as hundreds of tanks at its disposal.
'People (are) expecting an aggression ... every moment, so it is extremely tense. That is why it was extremely irresponsible to direct (monitors) to this region in this tense situation,' Kelin said after the closed-door OSCE meeting.
It was 'quite an adventure or provocation ... to bring these people to a hot spot,' he added.
Germany urged Moscow earlier on Monday to use its influence on the separatists to secure the release of the observers.
Kelin said an OSCE mission was 'doing a lot to liberate them and to get them free and we in Moscow ... feel that liberation of these military monitors will be a good step for de-escalation of the conflict.'
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.
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