Swiss draft ‘roadmap’ for defusing Ukraine

Ukranian government soldiers guard a building in eastern Ukraine. A Swiss plan would provide a path to disarmament Keystone

The Swiss-led international mediators at the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) have put forward a “roadmap” to peace in Ukraine to implement measures agreed by Russia, Ukraine and the United States in Geneva last month.

According to the foreign ministry, that roadmap consists of four main pillars: measures to end the violence in Ukraine, work towards disarmament, establishing a broad national dialogue and promoting elections set for May 25.

Although the foreign ministry declined to provide further details, Reuters reported on Friday that the two-page roadmap document, which has not been made public, also contains specifics about investigating reports of violence. These include a reporting hotline and offering amnesty to certain protesters who have surrendered weapons.

According to Reuters, the Swiss plan expressed the need to refrain from actions which violate Ukraine’s “basic security interests”, but did not call for Russia to take any specific action with regard to its troops.

Reuters also reports that the broad national dialogue called for in the OSCE roadmap would cover “decentralisation, local self-governance, language and national minorities” and that a series of “public high-level round tables” would be launched.

On Monday, Swiss President Didier Burkhalter will attend a meeting of EU foreign ministers in his capacity as current head of the OSCE. While in Brussels, Burkhalter is set to give further details of the plan to defuse the Ukraine crisis.

The Brussels meeting will also entail discussions about further sanctions, according to reports. The European Union has already sanctioned 48 people from Ukraine and Russia in relationship to the conflict, blocking bank accounts and instituting travel bans.

The Swiss have not issued any such sanctions but are investigating Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych and some 30 others for money laundering, freezing their bank accounts in the process.

Switzerland has also blocked some Russians, who have been sanctioned by the EU and the US, from engaging in further business activities in the Alpine state, but has so far refused to interfere in their existing Swiss holdings.