Press Statement of Special Representative of OSCE Chairperson-in-Office Sajdik after Meeting of Trilateral Contact Group on 24 April 2019

MINSK, 24 April 2019 – The Special Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office in Ukraine and in the Trilateral Contact Group (TCG), Ambassador Martin Sajdik, made the following statement to the press after the meeting of the TCG ‎and its Working Groups in Minsk on 24 April 2019:

“First, I would like to congratulate the citizens of Ukraine on the recent presidential elections. They were held in accordance with the international standards and requirements.

I welcome the statement of President-elect Volodymyr Zelensky, saying that "we will act in any case in the ‘Normandy format’ and we will continue the Minsk process."

Let me also make a personal comment. I highly praise the very accurate work of public opinion surveyors in Ukraine throughout the election campaign.

I would also like to remind here that two years ago in the Luhansk region, an OSCE Special Monitoring Mission member, Joseph Stone, died as a result of the explosion of the Mission’s vehicle. I fully support the efforts of Ambassador Ertugrul Apakan, SMM Chief Monitor, to ensure that such incidents will never happen again.

The SMM in Ukraine is the largest mission in the history of the OSCE. I call on the sides to do their utmost to ensure the safety of the personnel and assets of the SMM and to maintain the necessary conditions for the Mission’s unhindered activities in accordance with its mandate.

In this regard, I wish to note that on 18 April 2019 a long-range unmanned aerial vehicle of the SMM OSCE crashed near the contact line in the Donetsk region as a result of jamming. This is the third case over nearly one year.

Unmanned aerial vehicles are sophisticated and expensive equipment financed from the budget of the Mission’s participating states, that is, by the taxpayers of these countries.

I also want to note some positive trends. On 21April 2019, sixty detainees not related to the conflict were transferred from certain areas of the Luhansk region to continue serving their sentence in the government-controlled areas of Ukraine.

In the Security Working Group, the discussion focused on the sides’ recommitment to ceasefire on the occasion of the forthcoming Easter festivities. However, the participants could not reach consensus on the text of a joint statement.

The Humanitarian Working Group continued its discussions on the exchange of detainees and the conditions of their detention.

The Economic Working Group, with the participation of Florence Gillette, the newly appointed Head of the ICRC Delegation to Ukraine, addressed in particular burning issues of water supply, including major repairs of the Petrovsky water pipeline in the Luhansk region.

The Political Working Group discussed current topical questions.”