Ambassador Martin Sajdik, who is the Special Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office in Ukraine and in the Trilateral Contact Group on the implementation of the peace plan in the east of Ukraine, says that the sides in Minsk failed to reach any agreement on Friday to free prisoners of war (POW) before Orthodox Easter, according to an UNIAN correspondent.
”As for the meeting of the [Trilateral Contact Group`s] humanitarian subgroup, I must announce with regret that no agreements have been reached to free the captives, which would have been important prior to Easter,” Sajdik said in Minsk on Friday.
The work on the issue should be continued at the next subgroup meeting, he added.
The subgroup also agreed upon the opening of a checkpoint in Stanytsia Luhanska on April 30. The OSCE Special Monitoring Mission will also coordinate work on a checkpoint in the village of Zolote, he said.
Representatives of the two self-proclaimed republics of Donbas, the Donetsk People`s Republic and the Luhansk People`s Republic, did not respond to Kyiv`s proposal at the subgroup`s meeting that the POW be swapped in the 25-to-50 format.
”The talks on the swap of the hostages at the Group`s meeting in Minsk have derailed because of representatives of the militant-held areas in Donbas, who did not respond to our proposal. And now they demand amnesty for all those involved in terrorist acts in Odesa and Kharkiv,” Ukrainian representative of the humanitarian subgroup and First Vice Speaker of Ukraine`s parliament Iryna Gerashchenko wrote on Facebook.
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