Dacic plans to visit Ukraine "in next few weeks"

Dacic plans to visit Ukraine "in next few weeks"

He on Thursday evening "once again called on all signatories to start implementing the agreement so that the OSCE could do its part of the job."

Dacic told reporters after attending the Parliamentary Assembly Winter Meeting that the chance to solve the Ukrainian crisis must not be missed, stressing that he will visit Ukraine in the capacity of the OSCE chairman.

“The crucial question in Ukraine is not how to implement certain parts of the agreement, but rather whether the agreement has entered into force at all. The focus is on the ceasefire, which is a condition for the start of the implementation of any Minsk agreement reached by the Normandy Four,” Dacic said.

Dacic announced that he will attend the UNSC session on the situation in the OSCE region in the capacity of the OSCE chairman on February 24, the next day he is scheduled to attend a hearing at the Helsinki Commission in the U.S. Congress, while on February 26 he is planned to meet with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry.

Critical moment

Continuous breaches of the ceasefire in Ukraine may lead to uncontrolled violence, says the Chairperson-in-Office of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), Serbia's Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic, adding that "this is a critical moment for Ukraine.”

“I am concerned that the continuous breaches of the ceasefire, as reported by the Special Monitoring Mission, may lead to uncontrolled violence," an OSCE statement quoted Dacic as saying late Thursday.

"Once again I urge an immediate halt to any kind of activities that might put in danger the window of opportunity that the February 12 talks in Minsk created for peace,” Dacic said.

All parties to the Minsk package had a responsibility to comply with the ceasefire as the basis for implementing the next steps envisioned by the agreement, the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office noted.

“The only way forward is implementation of the Memorandum and Minsk Protocol from September 2014 and a peaceful solution of the conflict in Ukraine,” Dacic said.

In Vienna, which hosts OSCE Parliamentary Assembly Winter Meeting, Dacic met with Heidi Tagliavini, his special representative in Ukraine and the Trilateral Contact Group, chief of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine Ambassador Ertugrul Apakan, and Paul Picard, chief observer of the OSCE Observer Mission at the Russian Checkpoints Gukovo and Donetsk, who briefed him on their activities and the challenges in their work.