The head of the OSCE's parliamentary assembly Wednesday demanded that both Ukraine's pro-Russian separatists and its regular army stop intimidating or restricting the movements of the organisation's 400 monitors in east Ukraine.
A statement from the assembly's Finnish president Ilkka Kanerva said separatist fighters "have threatened OSCE staff on the ground" but that he particularly deplored an incident Tuesday when fighters from the self-proclaimed "Donetsk People's Republic" fired at an OSCE patrol.
"This situation cannot continue as is, and I am even more convinced of the need to seriously consider an international peacekeeping mission to eastern Ukraine in support of the OSCE's civilian mission," he said.
Ukraine President Petro Poroshenko this week reiterated a call for a peacekeeping force to be sent in to back up the OSCE mission that is monitoring a fragile February cease-fire to end a year of war that has left more than 6,000 people dead.
The OSCE's Kanerva also regretted "the continuing restrictions placed by illegal separatists and Ukrainian Armed Forces personnel on the movement of OSCE monitors and the effect of those restrictions on their reporting capacity."
The Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe sent a monitoring mission to Ukraine in March 2014.
Its mandate has been extended to end March 2016 with an agreement that monitors may be increased up to 1,000 as necessary depending on the situation on the ground.
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