The Ukrainian party turned down an extraordinary Contact Group meeting without giving reasons — Natalya Nikonorova

Kiev pointedly refuses to negotiate with the Republics, imposing unilateral actions exploited for media accusations. Instead of conscientiously implementing joint decisions, Ukraine pursues its agenda, neutralizing any of our peacemaking initiatives by provocations. DPR plenipotentiary at the Minsk talks, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Donetsk People’s Republic Natalia Nikonorova commented so on the extraordinary Contact Group meeting’s having been disrupted by the Ukrainian party.

“Due to the fact that we have not received yet any official response from the Ukrainian party on holding an extraordinary Contact Group meeting that we had initiated, we contacted the coordinator Martin Sajdik to clarify the position of Ukraine’s representatives on this issue.

Unfortunately, Mr. Sajdik said that there would be no extraordinary meeting of the Contact Group without any reason being given. We sent our proposal to convene an emergency meeting of the Contact Group and the official written statement on November 5 and 6 respectively, immediately after the Ukrainian party had once again thwarted measures to eliminate violations on the disengagement site near Petrovskoye on November 4.

We have not yet received any official proposal from the Kiev representatives, except for unilateral statements to the media, either on the collegial approval of a new date set at the Contact Group level or on a different date for the videoconference.

At present, here is the situation that Kiev thwarted the disengagement activities’ commencement on all the dates approved by the Contact Group on behalf of the Normandy Four, while the DPR People’s Militia forces repeatedly launched a white flare on the corresponding dates.

The Donetsk People’s Republic has been and remains a good-faith partner. Our proposal to collegially agree upon a date for an extraordinary Contact Group meeting and to implement the agreements already reached is valid: we are still ready to simultaneously implement the practical part of the activities on the date approved by the Contact Group,” Nikonorova said.