Madame Chairperson,

The Ukrainian delegation warmly welcomes Ambassador Florian Raunig, Head of the Task Force of the OSCE Chairmanship, to the Council of Europe and thanks him for his comprehensive presentation.

Ukraine shares priorities of the Austrian Chairmanship. We also commend your personal determination, Mr Raunig, to contributing to the OSCE activities aimed at preventing further escalation in eastern Ukraine. You can always count on Ukraine’s continuous support of your efforts as we clearly understand how challenging it is given Russia’s sometimes very straightforward and sometimes very tricky, but always very consistent steps taken in defiance of the Minsk agreements.

Ukraine supports further development of cooperation between OSCE and the Council of Europe. We strongly believe that one of the joint efforts of two organizations in this field should be focused on bringing to end grave human rights violations committed by Russia in the illegally occupied Crimea and Donbas.

First of all, Ukraine suggests that OSCE and the Council of Europe together explore the ways and modalities of their involvement in the implementation of the United Nations General Assembly Resolution 71/205 on the situation of human rights in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol (Ukraine).

One of the issues for both institutions is how to ensure safe and unfettered access to Crimea by established regional and international human rights monitoring mechanisms to enable them to carry out their mandate.

We also encourage the OSCE to use all assets at its disposal to monitor, report and duly react to the human rights situation in the illegally occupied Crimea, marked by repressions, political persecution and serious human rights violations.

Coming back to Donbas, Ukraine will welcome closer cooperation between the OSCE and the Council of Europe aimed at protecting human rights and freedoms in the conflict zone.

I thank you, Madame Chairperson.