MOSCOW, September 21 (RIA Novosti) - The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) responsible for a special mission monitoring the situation will "immediately and actively" support the implementation of agreements outlined in the Minsk memorandum, a spokesperson of OSCE Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) said in a statement released on Sunday.
"We welcome the Memorandum of 19 September 2014 on concrete steps to be taken to de-escalate the situation in eastern Ukraine... the Mission will immediately and actively support the implementation and monitoring of this agreement," the spokesperson said.
According to the OSCE statement, 80 members of the special monitoring mission (SMM) members are already in the region. "These teams will be deployed out of the cities of Mariupol, Donetsk, Konstantinovka, Severodonetsk and Luhansk, to the areas of non use of weapons mentioned in paragraph five of the agreement."
The statement also claims de-escalation in eastern Ukraine through the "silencing and withdrawal of weapons and clearing of mines and unexploded ordnance - is a vital first step."
The trilateral Contact Group on the situation in Ukraine first met on September 5 in Minsk which resulted in the agreement of a ceasefire which began that same day. On September 19, a memorandum was developed by the group to including nine provisions implementing the ceasefire between Kiev and independence supports in eastern Ukraine. The memorandum entailed the establishment of a 30 kilometer (approximately 19 miles) buffer zone on the current line of contact to be monitored by the OSCE.
In April, the Ukrainian authorities launched a military operation against the pro-independence movement of the country's southeast. The five-month conflict has killed over 3,000 people, according to UN estimates.
