“… we have to remain faithful to the ideals that were enunciated in the Helsinki agreement 40 years ago. We have to remain true to the core principles on which this organization was built, and it cannot be just in the words of an annual meeting. It has to be in every single action that we take through the year to give life to those principles. That’s why today I join with many of you in reviewing our call – we’ve already heard it – with respect to Ukraine. And it’s a call to both Ukrainians and the Ukrainian government and Russia.

“We need Russia to work with the separatists that it backs to fully implement the Minsk agreements, including the removal of Russian forces and equipment from eastern Ukraine, to provide unfettered access to this very organization, which still has not been able to put its people fully into the operation of monitoring.

“We need elections in Donbas under Ukrainian law and under monitoring by ODIHR, and we need the return of Ukrainian control on the border and the release of all hostages and illegally detained persons. And from Ukraine we need to see them do their part to restore the full ceasefire to withdraw the heavy weapons and to negotiate in good faith the Donbas election modalities. We also have a chance to make real progress on agreeing on procedures for these free and fair elections, and those will be critical with respect to defining an end to the troubles of Ukraine.

“So this is a time for concrete steps and to avoid what is a disastrous but unnecessary conflict, and to begin the process of rebuilding Ukraine’s east. …”

– U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, speaking at the Ministerial Meeting of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe in Belgrade, Serbia, on December 3 (from a transcript provided by the U.S. Department of State).