Instead of provocative stove-piping, the Ukrainian party had better focus on preparing constructive proposals on the implementation of the Measures Package’s political items — Natalya Nikonorova

Two days after the meeting of the Normandy Four countries’ leaders took place, at which the President of Ukraine personally admitted the binding nature of the Minsk Agreements to which there is no alternative, the Ukrainian authorities declare their intention to amend these agreements. This was stated by the DPR representative to the talks of the Trilateral Contact Group in Minsk and Foreign Affairs Minister Natalya Nikonorova.

“These statements are nothing more than an individual initiative, because the Contact Group cannot and will not work on amending the Package of Measures. On the contrary, the entire work in Minsk is underpinned by a strong commitment to the letter and spirit of the Minsk Agreements, their inviolable and indisputable nature, and is aimed exclusively at their clear implementation.

If any of Ukraine’s representatives to Minsk is still unaware, we strongly advise them to get acquainted with the current state of affairs and see the website of their President’s Office at least once. Even on this resource there has already been published the official text of the communiqué following the Paris meeting, in which, firstly, the Ukrainian leader reaffirmed the state’s obligations under the Minsk Agreements in the form in which they had been signed by the parties to the conflict and approved by the guarantor countries and the UN Security Council, and secondly, clear and direct instructions for the further implementation of the Package of Measures are specified.

At the same time, we urge the Ukrainian representatives to thoroughly go through the political part of these instructions, reaffirming the commitment of the Ukrainian leadership to agree all legal aspects of the special status of Donbass within the Contact Group. This is what will be discussed at the next meeting in Minsk, therefore, instead of further stove-piping into Ukraine’s media that have suffered a lot so far, we advise the Ukrainian party to focus on preparing constructive proposals on the implementation of the political items of the Measures Package,” Nikonorova said.