Donetsk, 19 Aug - DAN. Members of the security subgroup of the Contact Group have approached transferring the decision on anti-mine action into a framework status. DPR Foreign Minister NatalIa Nikonorova said that it will open doors to coordinating new areas for humanitarian demining in the front zone.
“Based on the results of the agreement reached at the meeting of the working group on security issues, we filed a draft of the updated Decision of the Contact Group on anti-mine action, which, in fact, only removes time limitations of the existing document and the link to the previously demined 12 areas. This project shifts the status of the Decision into framework. It will allow to approve new annexes on demining areas, by analogy with the Framework Decision on the disengagement of forces and hardware," Nikonorova said.
She added that today "it is quite possible to sign the project, as well as an annex with 20 new locations, upon the coordination of all coordinates."
“We hope for concrete steps on the part of Ukraine, which are especially important today for maintaining positive trends in the established ceasefire,” she concluded.
The Contact Group's decision on mine action in the region was first agreed at the safety subgroup meeting on March 3, 2016. According to the document, the conflicting parties committed themselves to demining, marking and fencing hazardous areas in the Donbass.
In January 2019, the OSCE coordinator invited the parties to agree on a list of preschool and school institutions in the frontline zone for mine clearance. In February, the corresponding work was carried out in five schools and kindergartens. Later, at a meeting in Minsk on March 27 of the same year, the idea was expressed to continue mine action in the Donbass.
The issue was brought in again in 2020. The participants of the talks supported the SMM-proposed generalized plan for demining territories on June 23. *ot