OSCE mission has no mandate to work in Crimea — Russian OSCE envoy

MOSCOW, April 3. /TASS/. The work of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) mission in Ukraine cannot spread to the territory of Crimea, Russia’s OSCE envoy Andrey Kelin said on Friday.

"When the mandate of the mission was adopted and then extended, we made a very clear statement that Crimea does not fall under the mission’s mandate. It is the territory of Russia," Kelin said during a Moscow-Vienna video link-up.

"There isn’t and can’t be any spread of the work of the mission to the territory of Crimea," he stressed.

The diplomat said some OSCE members, including the OSCE high commissioner on national minorities and the OSCE representative on media are attempting to "carry out a remote monitoring of the violations that they think are happening in Crimea."

"Such a remote monitoring has nothing in common with the reality as they do not know and do not understand what is in fact happening in Crimea," the diplomat said.

The OSCE SMM to Ukraine was deployed in late March 2014 and its mandate has been extended until March 31, 2016. The mission’s tasks are to observe and report in an objective way on the situation in Ukraine and facilitate dialogue among the conflicting parties.