Постоянное представительство Российской Федерации при ООН

Постоянное представительство Российской Федерации при ООН

Заявление для СМИ Постоянного представителя Российской Федерации при ООН В.И.Чуркина по ситуации на Украине

Постоянный представитель Российской Федерации при ООН В.И.Чуркин выступил перед СМИ и ответил на вопросы журналистов по ситуации на Украине. 



ВИДЕО


Транскрипт:

V.Churkin: Ladies and gentlemen, today under “other matters” in consultations of the Security Council the Russian delegation raised the issue of implementation of resolution 2166, which, you will recall, deals with the matter of the international investigation of the crash of the Malaysian airliner in Ukraine on July, 17. We were very disturbed to see today on the official portal of the Ukrainian government a statement, which said that since the international investigators had decided to suspend their work on the crash site, the ceasefire is no longer in effect. They also tried to implicate in that decision the international investigators stating that the international investigators had agreed with this decision to suspend the ceasefire. Of course, the ceasefire was established by resolution 2166, so it was obvious that it was a clear violation of that resolution and something which could have very grave consequence for the ability of international inspectors to conduct this investigation when they choose to return to the site. So we decided to raise this matter in the Security Council and before that, several hours before the meeting of the Security Council, we circulated a draft press statement which was supposed to urge the Ukrainian government to reconsider this decision. Now, apparently after our Ukrainian colleagues here in the United Nations heard about this initiative of the Russian delegation, they sent a letter to the President of the Security Council, stating that previous press release on the portal of the Ukrainian government was in fact not true and that the ceasefire continues to be in effect. All this is extremely disturbing, because many hours have passed since the original statement was released, so God knows what the consequence on the ground could have been given the nature of the situation.

Unfortunately, some members of the Security Council reacted in their typical way - being adamantly against any kind of criticism of the Ukrainian authorities, even though we have a case of attempted violation of resolution 2166 and in fact I don’t know what’s happening on the ground, it may well be that statement led to certain actions by the Ukrainian government and their forces, which may have impeded the further continued investigation and may have compromised the crash site. I have to share my disappointment with you and we do want to reiterate that resolution 2166 needs to be implemented in its entirety, including the ceasefire in the area adjacent to the crash site.

Q: (Inaudible)

V.Churkin:We will see how matters are going to evolve. Of course, what we hope for is that there is going to be ceasefire and that the international investigators will have a chance to return to the site. In fact I also brought to the attention of the members of the Council the statement which was made yesterday by the Prime Minister of the Netherlands (which is leading the investigation) where he thanked the local population for creating better conditions for their work and, very significantly, stating that when the international inspectors arrived, they came to the conclusion that more had been done for the investigation then they had previously anticipated. You remember how much criticism of the local people there was for the way they were dealing with this situation, but, in fact, as it turns out upon reflection and upon further examination of the crash site and the state of the investigation, the government of the Netherlands concluded that much had been done for the investigation even before the arrival of international inspectors.

Q: Just to be clear, may I ask you, was the press statement blocked?

V.Churkin: Yes, it was blocked.