Detained OSCE monitors should be freed soon, says Ukraine rebel leader

[World News]

Pro-Russian separatists are holding four monitors of the Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) who went missing in eastern Ukraine on Monday but are likely to release them soon, a rebel leader said on Thursday. Vyacheslav Ponomaryov, whose separatist group controls the town of Slaviansk, told Reuters the OSCE had been warned not to travel in the area, but had sent a four-man team out all the same. Talks are going on with the OSCE," he said. The team, which comprises a Dane, a Turk, an Estonian and a Swiss, are among a few hundred monitors sent to monitor compliance with an international accord for de-escalating the crisis in troubled eastern Ukraine, where separatists have seized control of strategic points in several towns.

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