Right of Reply to Russia On Russia’s Ongoing Aggression against Ukraine and Illegal Occupation of Crimea
As delivered by Chargé d’Affaires, a.i Courtney Austrian
to the Permanent Council,
Vienna July 29, 2021
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I’m just going to make a fairly brief response. I just wanted to remind my esteemed Russian colleague that Moscow committed to all three of the Minsk agreements: the Minsk Protocol, signed September 5, 2014; the Minsk Memorandum of Understanding, signed September 19, 2014; and the Minsk Package of Measures, signed February 12, 2015, since you wanted us to talk about documents.
Russia is a signatory to all three of these documents, so you don’t get to unilaterally select which elements of the agreements are to be implemented. That is inconsistent with the constructive engagement necessary to realize a diplomatic resolution to this conflict, which I think is something we are all looking for at this point.
As laid out in the Minsk Protocol, the participants of the Trilateral Contact Group are Ukraine, Russia, and the OSCE.
There is a frequent attempt to use UN Security Council Resolution 2202 as a justification to ignore the commitments that were undertaken by Russia when it signed the Minsk Protocol and the Minsk Memorandum. I just want to remind my Russian colleague that UNSCR 2202 expressly endorsed a Package of Measures to implement the existing Minsk agreements.
Thank you very much.
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