OSCE security monitors 'advance teams' in Ukraine tonight: US
Vienna (AFP) - "Advance teams" from the OSCE will start deploying in Ukraine late Monday but Russian objections mean the body has yet to agree on a full-scale mission, the top US diplomat to Europe said.
"Today there was an announcement that the OSCE will begin deploying tonight monitors to Ukraine who can provide neutral facts and provide a true assessment of facts on the ground," Victoria Nuland told reporters in Vienna.
Talking on the sidelines of a special meeting of the OSCE, Nuland said she hoped these "advance teams" will "be permitted to travel to Crimea where they are needed most, as well as to key cities in eastern Ukraine."
Lamberto Zannier, secretary general of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe said there were currently three additional personnel travelling to the crisis-wracked former Soviet country.
Representatives from the 57 member states of the OSCE were yet to agree on whether to send a large-scale monitoring mission, as favoured by Washington and others, Nuland and other officials said.
Russia's ambassador to the OSCE, which was created during the Cold War and which conducts conflict resolution and election observation worldwide, said that its monitoring missions were not always a good thing.
In Kosovo, monitors "contributed to worsening the situation", while in South Ossetia they "aggravated the situation," Andrei Kelin told reporters on the sidelines of the meeting.
Nuland said a full-scale monitoring mission "can go first and foremost to Crimea to de-escalate tensions and can provide an out for the Russian Federation if it so chooses."
Russia "can pull its forces back to base and have them replaced by independent monitors from the OSCE and from the UN ... (Russia) should make a 21st century choice," Nuland said.
On Sunday the US ambassador to the OSCE, Daniel Baer, called for monitors to be sent to Ukraine "immediately".
This followed a call on Sunday by the head of the NATO military alliance, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, for international observers to be dispatched -- either under the auspices of the UN Security Council or the OSCE.
The meeting in Vienna also touched on the possible creation of a "contact group" on Ukraine, an idea proposed by German Chancellor Angela Merkel and -- according to Berlin at least -- backed by Russian President Vladimir Putin, possibly under OSCE auspices.
Swiss President and OSCE chairman Didier Burkhalter said he supported the idea "as a platform for coordination and the exchange of information on international assistance" and that the OSCE was "well suited" to such a task.
The body's high commissioner for minorities, Astrid Thors, was in Kiev on Monday and aimed to go to Crimea, while Tim Guldimann, envoy of current OSCE chair Switzerland, was due to travel to Ukraine on Monday and also intends to go to Crimea, the body said.
In addition, the OSCE'S media freedom representative, Dunja Mijatovic, will visit Ukraine from Tuesday until Friday.
The OSCE added that 100 observers would monitor preparations for Ukraine's presidential elections on May 25, while 900 would be there for the actual election and to oversee the counting of the votes.
