Permanent Mission of the Russian Federation to the United Nations

Permanent Mission of the Russian Federation to the United Nations

Comments to the media by H.E. Mr. Vitaly I. Churkin, Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation to the United Nations on Ukraine and other issues

Comments to the media by H.E. Mr. Vitaly I. Churkin, Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation to the United Nations on situation in Ukraine and other issues.


VIDEO


Full transcript:


V.Churkin: I would like to say a few words about the situation in the East of Ukraine. We are deeply disturbed by the continued violence in Eastern Ukraine. As it turns out much touted so-called «Poroshenko’s peace plan» turned out to be nothing more than a smoke screen for an intensified punitive operation in the East of the country which is taking an increasing toll on the life of civilians and for that matter on the lives of combatants as well. The international community with active role of Russia has tried to produce an impetus for a political settlement of the situation there. Russia actively participated in preparing two documents which in our view should be seen as the basis for a political outcome of the current crisis in Ukraine. First is the Geneva Statement of April 17 put together by the Foreign Minister of Russia, Secretary of State of the United States, High Representative of the European Union and the Foreign Minister of Ukraine. The latest political effort was the Joint Declaration adopted in Berlin by the foreign ministers of Germany, France, Russia and Ukraine. However, we believe that the international community has not yet provided the required support for those political initiatives which are basically being ignored by the Kiev authorities continuing their military onslaught in the East of the country with a population close to 5 million people. The OSCE, which has deployed a monitoring mission in Ukraine, has not been able to generate a new political momentum and seems to be stagnated in an effort which has been undertaken there by the Russian Federation to make the next political step to help the parties reach some political accommodation and some understanding on ending violence. This is the key element of both documents I have referred to. The Geneva Statement of April 17 talks of ending violence. First paragraph of the Joint Berlin Declaration of July 2 talks of sustainable cease-fire, but so far the military operation tragically continues. Also, as you know, the Security Council has not supported the initiatives of the Russian Federation, which we have undertaken twice in the past few weeks. We put two draft resolutions of the SC on the table which were stonewalled by our western colleagues, but we believe that we need to keep trying and we hope that it will become clear after all to all members of the SC that we should not allow the situation in the East of Ukraine to get out of hand because it would have really dramatic, tragic consequences for the people in that part of Ukraine and, we believe, for the entire neighboring country of Ukraine.

Today we have decided to take a somewhat different tack in approaching what the SC can do with regard to the situation in Ukraine. Rather than introducing a new draft resolution we decided to focus on key elements which the SC needs to come to grips with. We have circulated elements which we hope will become the core of a resolution which can be adopted by the SC, and I will go through these elements.

We believe that the SC should:


– Express deep concern about the increasing number of casualties among the civilian population, including women and children, as a result of intensified combat operations as well as about the destruction of civilian infrastructure.

– Express its support for international proposals aimed at the settlement of the domestic crisis in Ukraine, namely the Geneva Statement of April 17 and the Berlin Joint Declaration of July 2.

– Voice an imperative demand addressed to the Ukrainian parties to the conflict to cease violence and fully implement the provisions of the abovementioned documents.

– Call on the OSCE to facilitate the settlement of the conflict by means of its Special Monitoring Mission in Ukraine.


In addition to that, you may know that in the contacts which President Putin had in the past few days through teleconference with the presidents of Germany, France and Ukraine we came up with a proposal that in order to help end violence in Ukraine the Russian Federation would allow Ukrainian border guards to be deployed at two crossing points on the Russian side of the border with Ukraine, and also the Russian Federation would allow OSCE monitors to be deployed there to make sure that nothing is happening on the border which could be seen as helping intensify conflict in the East of Ukraine. Unfortunately so far, as I mentioned, the OSCE has not been able to follow through on this offer of the Russian Federation which we regard actually as agreement which was reached in that quadripartite format between us, Germany, France and Ukraine. So this is what I wanted to share with you.


Q: So you have circulated the elements. How do you plan to pursue? Will you now call a meeting?


V.Churkin: Today unfortunately is a very busy day for the SC, so we decided not to go for a meeting, we simply circulated those elements electronically and asked colleagues to respond as soon as possible, but no later than 10 a.m. next Monday. If we get some useful input before Monday we will pick it up and move towards an outcome. Let me repeat once again, we decided to use a different approach, maybe a longer approach, sometimes it may seem that putting a draft on the table is easier and a faster track, but we are really trying to find a way to get to some common ground. We think that these four simple elements should be simple enough for the SC, if there is an interest on the part of the members of the SC to contribute to ending the violence in Ukraine and if, finally, the realization is coming that the current situation is intolerable - and we have over 100,000 refugees from Ukraine in Russia, we have several thousand people crossing the border every day, we have civilian infrastructure, villages and towns shelled by artillery and aircrafts. This is an intolerable situation. But simply producing an ultimatum that people must capitulate and be subjected to a «witch hunt» which we see happening in Slavyansk for instance, which has been taken over by Ukrainian armed forces, will not work. In order for things to happen, first of all there must be a sustainable cease-fire, in the context of that sustainable cease-fire we have proposed the arrangements on the border which I have described to you. And there must be contacts. There have been a couple of meetings of the contact group with the participation of representatives of the protestors in the East of Ukraine but unfortunately since the first couple of meetings they have not been able to meet again. We do hope that the contact group will also be able to continue to work.


Q: Thank you very much, Mr.Ambassador. It was hard to hear some points that you made from here, but I don’t think I heard any reference in these four points to asking the pro-russian militias who are now controlling Donetsk at least to do anything… Are they mentioned at all in this?


V.Churkin: Let me repeat the third element which we are offering:

– Imperative demand addressed to the Ukrainian parties to the conflict to cease violence and fully implement the provisions of the abovementioned documents.


Q: It’s said that Ukraine is blocking some TV stations. Also the US seems to dispute the numbers of refugees to Russia. US government is saying that it’s only Russian statistics…


V.Churkin: Yesterday the UNHCR finally came up with their own assessment and it is very close to our assessment. About the media – the Kiev authorities have been conducting an adamant campaign against the Russian media. As you know the result of this campaign is that some Russian (and not only Russian) journalists were killed in the East of the country. But also there has been a campaign on the blocking radio- and TV-stations, not allowing journalists to operate, creating hostility against Russian journalists. Those Russian journalists who operate in Kiev and other places face hostile environment but they continue to do their job anyway. 


Q: What makes you think that perhaps at this point there would be a UN Security Council support for these elements while the UNSC was unable to do anything in the past?


V.Churkin: Maybe some of the members of the Council were under the impression that “the Poroshenko plan” would be a miracle wand which would settle the situation there immediately - that was not the case. We voiced concerns about some elements of the plan. Of course the promise to end violence, not to use military force sounded encouraging but it has never materialized. But other elements, like ultimatum to protesters to lay down arms with vague promises of an amnesty - now we see what is happening on the ground, in Slavyansk and other towns. They treat it as an occupied territory, conducting their “witch hunt” and looking for people who were loyal to the protesters. Given the fact that this is an area where many people expressed their protest, not all of them militarily but politically. This really sounds like creating an environment of fear in Slavyansk and villages which are now reoccupied by the Kiev military. I do hope that the realization will come to the members of the Council that something needs to be done. Simply saying that people in the East are wrong and Kiev authorities are right and that Russia is to blame for everything is not going to lead anywhere. This can cause even more serious trouble that we see now with very grave consequences both for the civilian population and the civilian infrastructure, and for the Ukrainian economy. So if they want to bring back Ukraine to some normalcy economically, politically, in humanitarian terms, we must act as quickly as possible. It’s the responsibility of the members of the Security Council to try to help that happen.


Q: If this request is ignored by members of the SC, Russia mentioned in the past that it would not watch the Russians civilians in those areas being targeted. Are there any actions that we can expect…?


V.Churkin: We are trying to do our best for the people in eastern Ukraine in humanitarian terms. If you watch our media there is no secret where our sympathies lie because we do believe that the people in the eastern Ukraine have their right to voice their concerns. Some background. President Yanukovich was toppled as a result of a violent coup in Kiev in February. He was elected mostly by votes of the population in eastern Ukraine. He is “their president” who was thrown out of Kiev by force. And there were other things that followed immediately like an effort to suppress the use of the Russian language. They also should have better talked of a government of national unity instead of a government of victors etc. They were clearly extremely concerned of what to be the next thing facing them and the Kiev authorities made no effort at all to enter into any kind of dialogue with them. Also for a long while there was no effort to enter in any kind of military resistance in eastern Ukraine. Only after a number of instances where the Kiev authorities missed the opportunities there to establish a genuine dialogue with people in eastern Ukraine all this trouble started brewing. We are very actively participating politically, we are providing humanitarian support, we do not want to see any military escalation. This is the main goal of all our efforts including this new effort in the UNSC.


Q: I would like to ask you on the current situation in Gaza. Could you explain why the UNSC was not able to come up with a statement.


V.Churkin: As far as Russia is concerned we are extremely worried about the situation between Israel and Gaza. We’ve always condemned all crimes which were committed against Israel. We condemned excesses and situations where one can say that international humanitarian law has not been observed. We believe that there must be a mutual cease-fire as quickly as possible. We would like to see a repetition of the experience of November 2012 when Egypt was able to mediate a cease-fire arrangement between the Israelis and Gaza authorities. We hope that this is something that is going to happen as soon as possible.

As to the statement, I can only share my observation with you: after the discussions in the UNSC yesterday the Jordanian DPR said that they would provide some elements that could be a basis of such statement and then they retreated to talk to the American delegation. That was the end of it. We never received any draft press-statement.


Q: On Syrian humanitarian resolution. Is there any progress?


V.Churkin: Well I think there should be, I think we had a good session yesterday and basically for agreement to be accomplished the sponsors need to drop some offending elements, which would not be acceptable to the Russian Federation and for that matter for China, if I may speak on behalf of my Chinese colleague. Today we are going to have another sort of private meeting - my hope is that those clearly unacceptable, politicized elements, which have nothing to do with the humanitarian situation in Syria, if those things are dropped, then I think that we can have that resolution adopted.

 

Q: Ambassador, the Arab group is currently considering to tabling a resolution calling for cease-fire in Gaza. Have you seen the draft of this resolution? Is that an initiative that Russia would support?

 

V.Churkin: Well, we have not seen the draft. I have heard that they may be working in that direction. If they produce a draft, of course we will have a very close look at it.

 

Q: Mr. Ambassador, what is the status of the resolution that you had circulated some weeks ago about terrorists getting their hands on oil fields…

 

V.Churkin: It’s not a resolution, it’s a draft presidential statement (PRST). We are working on it and I think there is realistic chance that we will have it adopted. I hope so, because who can argue against the need not to finance terrorists? This is the core element of this draft. We know that this is happening in Iraq, we know that this is happening in Syria. We hope that this PRST will send a very strong signal to countries that they should be very wary about entering into transactions which may, in fact, amount to financing terrorists.

 

Q: Ambassador, you spoke about the politicized elements in a draft resolution, could you be a little bit more explicit?

 

V.Churkin: There are things which in our view have nothing to do with the humanitarian situation or our joint efforts to create better conditions for the humanitarians to operate in Syria, but simply, part of this continuing effort by some members of the international community to indicate that they may be prepared to use military force in Syria. Even though that may not be their intention currently, we vigilantly keep looking for those situations and we are telling very frankly to our colleagues that we are not going to be a part of it. So if they were to retain those provisions of that resolution then clearly that would not be acceptable to the Russian Federation. But that has been clear to them throughout our work on this resolution for the past two months. So somehow if they stick to it, to me that would be an indication that what they are interested in is not in fact the humanitarian situation in Syria.

 

Q: Mr. Ambassador, are there still any differences on how this cross border operation would work? How the Syrian government would be notified?

 

V.Churkin: If the new text (which I expect to see) of the draft reflects the understandings we reached yesterday in our discussions, then I think we do have the understanding, but unfortunately in the course of this laborious process of the past two months, we have seen situations, where we seemed to have agreed on something but then a new draft did not reflect those understandings. But I thought it was very clear yesterday, what we agreed on. And with the exception of those two politicized elements, I think we had common understanding of what should be included in that resolution.

 

Q: Recent revelations by the Iraqis is that the Sarin gas is still there. How do you view that compared with the Syrian experience, where chemicals were removed in a very short period of time?

 

V.Churkin: As you know throughout this saga of the use of chemical weapons in Syria we had numerous reports that the terrorists may be engaged in producing chemical weapons including Sarin. In consultations on December, 16, and I then read out here at the stakeout the text of my remarks in those consultations, we proved conclusively that not only on March 19 but also on August 21 the Sarin gas was used by terrorist groups fighting in Syria.

 

Q: One last question. The group calling itself the Islamic State that now is controlling the significant part of Syria and Iraq… is this an issue that you would expect the Security Council to address soon in a boarder context?

 

V.Churkin: Let me remind you - this is exactly what we did in the course of our presidency in the Council in June. We asked the Secretariat in the person of J.Feltman to describe to us the views of the Secretariat about the transborder terrorist threat in the Middle East and it’s quite clear that this ISIS group is operating both in Syria and Iraq and this Caliphate they have declared established, as you know, covers place between Aleppo and Baghdad, vast territory. There is a different terrorist group which is operating in Yemen but even though they sometimes fight with each other, I think we should not underestimate the unity of this terrorists’ International. So our pitch was to - first of all - intensify our joint international effort to fight terrorism, the declarations, which one could hear some time ago that the war with terrorism or against terrorism was over, in our view, was clearly premature. In fact we see the need to intensify that joint war we need to be conducting against terrorism. Then there is the regional dimension, which in our view needs to be reflected in the way we deal among other things with the Syrian political settlement. We need to have a fresh look at the situation and I hope that the appointment of the new special envoy of the Secretary-General, Mr. Staffan de Mistura, might provide another opportunity for a fresh look at the situation in Syria, in the region and the terrorist threat in the region for us to come up with joint approaches which would help end this spiraling violence and terrorism in the Middle East and beyond.

 

Thank you very much.