Contact Group’s subgroup on security to meet this week - Lavrov

SOCHI, May 12./TASS/. The Contact Group’s subgroup on security will assemble later this week, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Tuesday after talks with visiting U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry. "Violations of the ceasefire regime continue, violations of agreements on heavy weapons withdrawal are reported from both sides," Lavrov said. "Today, we operated general criteria, using reports of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission, which does its job professionally, despite the fact that Ukrainian officials occasionally accused it in public of being biased." "Such behavior runs counter to the tasks of the implementation of the Minsk agreements," he said. He said in preparations for a meeting of the Contact Group on Ukraine and its subgroups, held in Minsk on May 6, draft documents on demilitarization of Shirokino were discussed as well as Russia’s proposal on the pullback of tanks and armaments of a caliber less than 100-millimeters. "Representatives of the [self-proclaimed Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics] DPR, LPR, OSCE and Russia were ready to sign these documents, but this didn’t happen for some reasons," he continued. "An agreement was reached to submit it for consideration of the Contact Group’s subgroup on security, which is due to meet this week." If these documents were finally signed and their implementation began, "it will considerably reduce risks of ceasefire violations and will make it possible to better control the implementation of the provision on the pullout of heavy weapons," he underscored. Read more