António Guterres called on all parties to continue working to implement the Minsk agreements.
UN Secretary General António Guterres welcomes the exchange of detainees between Kiev and the Donbas Republics and hopes for further progress in resolving the conflict in eastern Ukraine. This was reported in a statement published on Thursday on the website of the General Secretary’s office.
“[The Secretary-General] hopes that this important humanitarian action on the eve of Orthodox Easter will be a positive step towards further progress, including a permanent ceasefire, <…> as well as the continuation of the disengagement of forces and unhindered access to humanitarian assistance across the line of contact”, – it was reported.
The statement also notes that the Secretary General calls on all parties to continue working to implement the Minsk agreements.
Exchange of detained persons
On Thursday, a few days before Orthodox Easter, the first in 2020 exchange of held persons between the Donbas Republics and Kiev took place, as agreed by the parties at the last contact group meeting on April 8. Kiev handed over 10 detained persons to the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) and four to the Lugansk People’s Republic (LPR). In turn, the DPR released nine people and LPR – 11. The total number of released persons was less than planned. Four of those who were requested by the LPR refused to return to the republic due to family reasons.
According to the Russian envoy in the contact group of Boris Gryzlov, the decision on the exchange was long delayed by the Kiev delegation at the talks in Minsk, “an agreement was reached only after the highest level of administration was involved.
The exchange took place on Thursday – already the second after the summit of the “Norman Quartet” (Russia, Germany, France, Ukraine) in December 2019, when there was a recommendation to the parties to the conflict to exchange in the format of “all for all. But it has not yet completely solved the problem. On Thursday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stressed that negotiations on the exchange of detainees both within the contact group and in the “Norman format” will continue. In turn, the DPR informed that the republic set a task to bring back home about 100 more people. Russian Ambassador Boris Gryzlov said after the exchange that the parties agreed to discuss further actions on exchange at the next meeting of the contact group.