It is a day that celebrates and calls upon us all to cherish peace. It warns us that peace is fragile. And it reminds us that there are still too many places, where it is non-existent. For over two years, Ukraine has endured much. The people in eastern Ukraine had their lives threatened, their families separated and their livelihoods destroyed.
It is invariably the civilian population who suffer the most.
The elderly, women and children who are unable or unwilling to flee the conflict zone, are often found living in the most difficult circumstances.
The very basics of life – food, water, electricity, medicine, heating – are in short supply. The more affluent and more mobile who number among the hundreds of thousands of people displaced by this conflict may have adapted and found new lives and employment in often precarious new environments, but face challenges of their own.
People of Ukraine deserve peace. Weapons must stop being used and must be removed. Mines and unexploded ordnances need to be cleared and people should be able to return to their homes. This is the basis for the development of a stable and prosperous Ukraine.
The search for peace is not easy and decisive and courageous efforts and steps are needed.
We have seen some progress of late – with the level of violence considerably reduced in Donbas – but much remains to be done.
I am hopeful that the recent developments, in which the sides have recommitted tothe ceasefire previously agreed, will increase mutual trust and that the weapons will be silent for a longer period of time; I hope, permanently.
Through the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission, 57 States across the entire northern hemisphere are at hand to listen to and to assist the people of Ukraine.
The people deserve a complete cessation of violence. They deserve their livelihoods back. They deserve security, normalization and stabilization. They deserve real, tangible and permanent peace.
We in the SMM will continue working to this goal.
Ambassador Ertugrul Apakan is the chief monitor of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s Special Monitoring Mission.
