The Russian president previously backed
deploying UN peacekeeping mission to Donbass.
VLADIVOSTOK,
September 5. /TASS/. There is no certainty as of yet about a possible UN
peacekeeping mission to Donbass, Russian president’s press secretary Dmitry
Peskov said on Tuesday.
"As of
now, there are no modalities of such peacekeeping forces. This initiative has
not yet been either discussed, or worded, or shaped, or even agreed," he
told journalists when asked whether Russia would agree to refrain from taking
part in such mission.
"Moscow
has never opposed this idea, it has always objected against discussing this
issue ignoring any party to the conflict," he told journalists. "It
is a way to nowhere."
"No, no one has any idea," Peskov said when asked about possible composition of such mission and Russia’s possible participation.
"The
thing is that this topic has been raised for a long time but no one has any
clarity about it," he said.
"Putin
has never objected against sending peacekeepers but he has always stressed it
could be possible only after the disengagement of the parties and only upon
mutual consent of the parties to that conflict."
"As
you know, the unrecognized republics of LPR and DPR (Lugansk and Donetsk
People’s Republics) are a party to the conflict, hence, it is impossible to
deploy any peacekeepers without contacting them, without agreeing the
modality with them," the Kremlin spokesman noted. "This is what
Russian President Putin has been saying."
The Kremlin
spokesman reminded that the idea of sending peacekeepers to southeastern
Ukraine had previously been voiced by both German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and
Ukrainian President Pyotr Poroshenko, and others. "The idea has been
floating for long but this is not the matter be that easily settled and what is
most important, it cannot be settled without contacts with either of the
parties," Peskov stressed.
When asked
why Putin has said nothing about control over the Ukrainian-Russian border, the
Kremlin spokesman reminded that this subject is regulated by the Minsk
agreements. "There is no point in discussing it. It’s better to read more
closely the text [of the Minsk-2 package] that was signed by the parties,"
he stressed.
Earlier on
Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Russia plans to submit to
the United Nations Security Council a resolution on the deployment of UN
peacekeepers along the line of engagement in Donbass to ensure safety of the
OSCE mission. He stressed however that deployment of UN peacekeepers could only
be possible after weapons withdrawal from the area and upon agreement with the
self-proclaimed Donbass republics.
Source: ITAR-TASS 06-09-2017
