President of Ukraine

Results of the TCG meeting: unimpeded and safe extinguishing of fires in the Luhansk region, new checkpoints and demining areas

8 July 2020 - 22:12

A regular meeting of the Trialteral Contact Group (Ukraine, Russia, OSCE) took place. It was traditionally held in the format of a video conference.

During a discussion, the Ukrainian party to the TCG insisted on the immediate establishment of a sustainable and comprehensive ceasefire, in particular in view of the situation resulting from the fires in the Luhansk region. This request was fully supported by the TCG coordinator - the OSCE representative and agreed by the participants of the meeting. Thanks to the active position of the Ukrainian delegation, security guarantees were obtained for flights of SES civilian aircraft to eliminate fires in the Luhansk region near the delimitation line.

The OSCE representatives noted the constructive position of the Ukrainian delegation in the political working group, within which the legal aspects of the settlement of the international armed conflict in the Ukrainian Donbas were discussed. Representatives of certain districts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Ukraine as part of the Ukrainian delegation took an active part in the discussion.

During the discussion of security issues, attention was paid to solving the problem of non-admission of OSCE SMM observers to the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine. Such access from the territories controlled by the government of Ukraine is provided in full, while from the temporarily occupied territory it is still blocked. With this in mind, TCG Coordinator, Special Representative of the OSCE Chairman-in-Office, Ambassador Heidi Grau stressed that in the territory of Ukraine there should be equal approaches to ensuring access for OSCE SMM members.

At the same time, the OSCE acknowledged significant progress in developing an updated demining plan. As part of this work and in pursuance of the agreements of the Paris Summit of the "Normandy Four", 13 demining sites were preliminarily agreed upon with the possibility of further processing of the next seven sites. In order to further intensify work on security issues, the Ukrainian delegation initiated an additional meeting of the relevant TCG working group on July 14.

To address humanitarian issues, the Ukrainian delegation stressed the need and readiness for its part to ensure the passage of citizens through all checkpoints, but the issue remains unresolved due to the unconstructive position of the other side. The position of the Ukrainian delegation on the possibility of opening two new checkpoints in the Luhansk region within four months was supported.

Ukraine also reaffirmed its willingness to release detainees in “all-for-all" format as soon as possible and stressed that it is waiting for the written confirmation from the other side.

Also, during the TCG meeting, the issue of environmental safety was raised again.