Ukraine to focus on UN reformation, fighting against terrorists during presidency in UN Security Council – foreign minister

Ukraine is preparing for its presidency in the UN Security Council and plans in the period to focus on reformation of the organization and return to the principles laid in its charter, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin has said.

"We would have a period of presidency in the UN Security Council. There will be several top-priorities. We would have special accents on fighting against terrorists, UN reform and real return to UN charter principles," he said in an interview with the Segodnya newspaper published on October 22.

The minister said that Ukraine is holding talks with UN on deployment of the UN peacekeeping force in the territory of Donbas controlled by the illegal armed groups, as there are doubts that the OSCE mission would cope with the task of full control over weapons in the region.

"Now we're holding talks both with the EU and UN. We permanently insist on expanding OSCE mission. If you remember they started with several hundreds of people in Donbas. Now they have 600 monitors, but they are still not many," Klimkin said.

Asked what compromise Ukraine is ready to reach, the minister said that no responsible and sober-minded politician in Ukraine would speak about compromises, which concern not simply national security, but the backbone of Ukraine's existence.

Klimkin also said that he is lobbying for access of representatives of the United Nations or the Council of Europe to monitor the situation in Crimea.

"The humanitarian situation in Crimea is difficult, human rights are violated there. I'm fighting for allowing the UN or the Council of Europe to come to Crimea to monitor the situation," he said.

The minister said that "no one would start war with Russia as a nuclear state, I mean not only Ukraine."

He said that the issue of Crimea was not removed from the agenda on the international arena and "I did not hear from anyone that Crimea should be recognized."