Poland pushes for UN peacekeeping mission in Ukraine
UNITED NATIONS, US: Poland’s president on Thursday asked the UN Security Council to deploy a UN peacekeeping force to Ukraine throughout a zone of conflict that Western powers accuse Russia of fomenting.
“We are advocating the deployment of a UN peacekeeping mission,” Andrzej Duda told a news conference after delivering a similar plea before the UN Security Council, where Poland holds the rotating presidency for the month of May.
“I also stressed in the strongest terms that if that happened those forces should deploy across all territory which today is in the hands of separatists,” he added.
“First those forces should be deployed along the international recognized border between Ukraine and Russia,” Duda said. Last September, Russia proposed
a limited UN peacekeeping mission to protect around 600 observers from the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe who are on the ground in eastern Ukraine.
Russia drafted a UN resolution that would authorise lightly armed peacekeepers to protect the OSCE monitors along the demarcation line between Ukrainian troops and pro-Russian rebels.
But Ukraine has long demanded a UN deployment that goes significantly further, across the east of the country including on the border with Russia to prevent armed forces from entering.
Any proposal on a peacekeeping force for eastern Ukraine submitted to the UN Security Council would almost certainly be vetoed by Russia.
The Kremlin has categorically opposed placing armed UN peacekeepers along parts of its border with Ukraine not under Kiev’s control.