Oral Answers to Questions

Conor McGinn Excerpts

Tuesday 12th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

The need for the implementation of the ceasefire and the withdrawal of weapons were among the issues on which I pressed the Russian authorities in my meetings with First Deputy Foreign Minister Titov in Moscow just before Christmas 2015. I reiterated in my meeting yesterday with the Mayor of Lviv, Mr Sadovy, the United Kingdom’s commitment to the independent sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine.

[Conor McGinn (St Helens North) (Lab)]

Under the Minsk agreement, the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe is charged with monitoring ceasefire arrangements and weapons withdrawal. When did the Minister last meet the OSCE on this issue, and what is his assessment of its most recent report?

[Mr Lidington]

I last discussed those points directly with Michael Link, the director of the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, at the OSCE ministerial meeting in mid-December. The OSCE is doing a heroic job, with its monitors sometimes under direct personal threat from the continued fighting in the Donbass. It does not yet have access, to which it is entitled, to the whole of the Donbass, and we continue to press the Russians to use their influence over the separatists to allow the OSCE to carry out its mission fully.