Russia hopes progress can be made by Ukraine conflicting parties
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E-mail Xinhua, December 3, 2014
Although there was no official confirmation on the ceasefire reached by Kiev and the so-called Lugansk People's Republic, Russia hopes to see real progress made to peacefully solve the Ukraine crisis, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said Tuesday.
"We have noticed the special brief report released by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), while at the same time there has been no official confirmation yet," Lukashevich said at a news briefing.
"If this is really so, it is a very important step to de- escalate the confrontation and a long stride to enforce the Minsk agreements, in particular the memorandum of September 19, in which the parties pledged to terminate armed standoff and withdraw heavy armaments as well as multiple rocket launchers," Lukashevich said.
He added that the ceasefire, if real, is a major agreement reached under the framework of the so-called mechanism of control and verification among Kiev, Donetsk and Lugansk achieved with Russia's assistance, Tass news agency reported.
At the same time, Lukashevich called for common sense to prevail with regard to the western sanctions against Russia, urging the West "to overcome the vicious logic of restrictive and threatening measures, and switch to the search for constructive solutions, in particular, of the grave Ukrainian crisis."
Accusing the West of its refusal to continue military cooperation with Russia, such as on conventional arms control in Europe, Lukashevich said that those unilateral actions "limit the prospects for development of predictability and transparency measures in the military sphere."
The spokesman also suggested to develop a new platform that better suits modern security threats in Europe, while the basic Helsinki Accords adopted in 1975 should be re-confirmed in the current conditions and a new consensus of its interpretation should be reached.
"We don't call for revision of the Helsinki Accords, which has became a ground of the modern European security architecture. We offer to develop some new conceptual platform for discussion of the challenges of the modern security," Lukashevich said.
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