Donetsk, Sep 9 - DAN. The Donetsk People’s Republic offers to convene an extraordinary meeting of the Contact Group at 12:00 on Wednesday over de-escalation in the Shumy settlement area outside Gorlovka, DPR representative to the Contact Group, the Republic’s Foreign Minister Natalia Nikonorova said on Tuesday.

“We suggest convening an extraordinary meeting of the Contact Group at 12:00 on September 9, over joint inspection involving representatives of the Donetsk People’s Republic and Ukrainian representatives at the Joint Centre for Control and Coordination with OSCE assistance, to record the rectification of the violations in advancing Ukrainian armed formations’ positions near the Shumy settlement,” Nikonorova said.

The letter urging the meeting has already been forwarded to the OSCE, she said.

Nikonorova underlined that Donetsk had incontrovertible proofs that Kiev had conducted engineer works which were banned by the additional ceasefire control measures. The evidence was repeatedly sent to the OSCE, but evoked no proper response.

“We remind that according to the Mission’s mandate, OSCE SMM representatives not only have the opportunity but also the duty to carry out objective, transparent and unbiased monitoring of all facts of non-compliance with the accords reached at the Minsk talks. We hope that both Ukraine and the mediators realise the importance of maintaining the fragile peace which they helped to attain and that they will do everything to prevent a new spiral of conflict escalation,” Nikonorova said.

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The DPR postponed the removal of Ukrainian army fortifications near Gorlovka to September 9. Donetsk repeatedly said that the People’s Militia had to resort to such measures because Kiev refused to acknowledge that it had violated the additional ceasefire control measures.

The demands that Kiev remedy the violations were first issued in Donetsk on August 28. During the operation of additional ceasefire control measures, Ukrainian servicemen installed new fortifications advancing them towards the Seversky Donets-Donbass water duct arc, a key water supply line in the region, with the view of taking a foothold there.

The package of tighter ceasefire control measures came into force in Donbass on July 27, 2020. The document bans the use of any weapons, deployment of hardware, engineer works, use of unmanned aerial vehicles etc.*jk