Kiev to ask EU to send experts to eastern Ukraine
By Adrian Croft BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Ukraine will ask the European Union next Monday to send experts to eastern Ukraine to carry out missions ranging from removing mines to training police, its ambassador in Brussels said on Thursday. Kostiantyn Yelisieiev said Ukraine would raise the issue at a Kiev summit between Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and European Council President Donald Tusk. "We are of the view it is high time to go from theoretical debates to practical discussion," he told reporters, adding that Ukraine would suggest the EU send an assessment mission to eastern Ukraine to look into a possible EU role. He said Ukraine had proposed 15 different tasks that an EU mission could carry out to support implementation of the Minsk ceasefire agreements to end fighting between pro-Russian separatists and Ukrainian armed forces. An EU mission would complement the monitoring role of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, he said, suggesting it could help Ukraine regain control over its border with Russia, de-mine parts of war-torn Donetsk and Luhansk regions and help to train local police. Russia has previously dismissed calls from Kiev for U.N. peacekeepers to be deployed in east Ukraine. Ukraine was looking into the idea of creating a joint EU-Ukraine fraud investigation bureau to make sure EU funding for Ukraine was well spent, Yelisieiev said. An EU official said ceasefire monitoring was a job for the OSCE but said the EU could look at other possible tasks. The EU has already sent experts on police and justice reform to Ukraine. Also on the agenda for Monday will be energy security and implementation of an EU-Ukraine free trade agreement. Poroshenko signed the agreement in June 2014 but the EU and Ukraine agreed last September to delay implementation until the end of 2015 in a concession to Russia, which had complained its industry would be hurt by the deal. Yelisieiev said he understood Moscow now wanted to delay implementation of the trade pact beyond the end of 2015. He said Ukraine rejected any renegotiation of the agreement or any further delay in implementation. (Editing by Andrew Roche)
