Russia has given its consent to the deployment of an armed police mission in Donbas, a high-ranking Ukrainian presidential official says. At the same time, Moscow denies this information.
“Following negotiations in the Normandy format, we reached unanimity in our positions and an agreement that we will start working in Vienna on the level of the Normandy format permanent envoys to the OSCE, involving in the future all OSCE countries. After all, we will need consensus of all of the organization’s member-states regarding the mission’s deployment in Donbas. Russia has also agreed to this,” Ukrainian deputy presidential chief of staff Kostiantyn Yeliseyev said in an interview with Interfax-Ukraine.
Kyiv has ‘distinct records of all telephone conversations’, in which all of the Normandy format participants agreed to the deployment of an armed OSCE police mission, Yeliseyev said.
“The only thing I’d like to note is that the leaders did not discuss details, as this is up to experts and specialists to do to develop relevant proposals and submit them to the Normandy format leaders for endorsement,” he said.
In turn, Grigoriy Karasin, Deputy Head of Russia’s Foreign Ministry, states that the Russian Federation has never given their consent.
‘There are special negotiation formats to discuss such issues, for example, the peace talks on the conflict in Ukraine in Minsk, or OSCE,” he said.
Read also: OSCE may ask Belarus to bring police mission into Donbas – expert
belsat.eu, following Interfax-Ukraine
