OSCE Chairman-in-Office, Minister of Foreign and European Affairs of the Slovak Republic Miroslav Lajčák has stated that the humanitarian situation in Donbas was not improving.
Speaking at a joint press conference with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin in Kyiv, Lajčák said the main objective of the Slovakian OSCE chairmanship is to resolve the problems of ordinary citizens, an UNIAN correspondent reports.
Therefore, the improvement of the grave humanitarian situation and the living conditions of people, especially in the east of Ukraine, are high on OSCE's agenda, according to Lajčák.
Also, the Slovak Foreign Minister noted that following his first visit to Ukraine as OSCE Chairman in January of this year, he proposed a set of nine specific confidence-building measures to be taken in Donbas.
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Lajčák clarified that he separately discussed these measures with Klimkin and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Moscow.
These measures include the repair of the bridge in the Stanytsia Luhanska, ensuring the protection of civilian infrastructure, humanitarian demining, hostage exchange, opening additional entry-exit checkpoints, addressing potential environmental issues, improving medical services and restoring the passenger (rail) traffic across the contact line.
He added that, unfortunately for people from both sides of the contact line, little has changed since his visit in January.
He also noted that this time, he came to Kyiv to stimulate new Ukrainian leadership to join efforts to solve the humanitarian problems of the Donbas population and find out how to build joint cooperation to achieve this goal.
