MOSCOW. June 26 (Interfax) - The issue with the release of Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) monitors captured in Ukraine should be resolved, Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and all Russia said.
"I am urging everyone, on whom this depends, to assist in the release of the group of OSCE monitors detained in southeastern Ukraine," the Patriarch was quoted as saying in a statement issued by the Synod information department press office on Wednesday.
The release of these individuals will become "one more important manifestation of good will and aspiration for a peaceful resolution to the Ukrainian crisis," Patriarch Kirill said.
"I lay the responsibility - to be a contact person on behalf of the Russian Orthodox Church on issues related to release of monitors - on His Eminence Metropolitan Mercurius of Rostov and Novocherkassk," the statement said.
Two teams of the OSCE monitoring mission in Ukraine went missing in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions on May 26 and 29 - they comprised eight monitors and one interpreter. The first team included nationals of Switzerland, Estonia, Turkey, and Denmark. No information is available concerning the citizenship of the second team members.
None of the militia groups claimed responsibility for abducting the monitors, spokesperson for the OSCE special monitoring mission in Ukraine Michael Bociurkiw said.
It emerged on June 19 that the OSCE had established contact with these two groups of monitors but they were not released, and nothing is known about possible demands from those holding the observers.