You're reading: OSCE Secretary General: Shyrokyne truce good chance for peace in Ukraine

VILNIUS – OSCE Secretary General Lamberto Zannier has said that a truce which has been reached in the village of Shyrokyne outside Mariupol gives a good chance for achieving peace in Donbas.

“The news this morning is that our people, our monitors have brokered a truce in Shyrokyne, down near Mariupol. And this truce seems to be holding,” Zannier said during a visit to Lithuania on April 20.

“There is a good chance for peace at this moment and we need to invest as much as we can in this. But there is always a risk of relapse in the conflict,” he said.

The OSCE secretary general said that in general the situation was better than it was few weeks back, that most of the heavy weapons had been withdrawn. Now, it is time to withdraw light armaments as well, he added.

Zannier said that the OSCE was currently looking for observers with military experience. He expressed the hope that by summer the OSCE mission would have at least 600 observers, whereas it currently numbered less than 500.