Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 27
By Anakhanum Khidayatova - Trend:
The current crisis in Europe has been the worst since the end of the "Cold War", the OSCE current chairman, Serbian Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic said during the hearings held in the Helsinki Commission.
"The situation with the European security is critical," he said. "Our main priorities are the cooperation in the OSCE and the prevention of the escalation of the crisis in Ukraine and around it. Peace and security in Europe are our common responsibility."
"The OSCE is trying to ensure settlement of the situation in Ukraine diplomatically," he said.
While commenting on the meetings of foreign ministers of Russia and Ukraine Sergey Lavrov and Pavlo Klimkin in New York earlier, Dacic said that the sides agreed to extend the mandate of the special monitoring group of the OSCE mission in Ukraine.
Dacic, who is on a visit to the US, held a meeting with Secretary of State John Kerry. The US-Serbian relations, the crisis in Ukraine, Serbia's priorities during its chairmanship in the OSCE were discussed at the meeting.
Ukrainian authorities began a military operation in Donbass in April 2014 against the citizens dissatisfied with the state coup. According to the UN latest data, almost 5,700 civilians were killed in the conflict.
Edited by CN
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