The United Nations top political affairs official on Tuesday stressed the need to breathe life back into ongoing efforts to end the conflict in eastern Ukraine, now in its fifth year, which has killed and injured thousands of civilians, plunging the country into a humanitarian crisis.

While commending efforts by the French government to combat terrorism, a United Nations rights expert has raised concerns about the effect recent counter-terrorism laws are having on fundamental human rights there, including freedom of movement, religion and association.

Efforts to calm tensions between Belgrade and Pristina that came to a head with the arrest, “theatrical” parade and expulsion of a lead negotiator from Kosovo, must be redoubled if “real progress” is to be made on the ground, a senior United Nations official said on Monday.

Long-term restrictions on “freedoms of expression, assembly and association” are incompatible with the holding of “credible elections” in Turkey, said the United Nations human rights chief on Wednesday, calling on the Government to lift its extended state of emergency.