The proposals that were stated at the Munich Conference in the context of supposedly facilitating conflict settlement in Donbass, as a matter of fact, are of no practical value, DPR Foreign Minister Natalya Nikonorova stated on February 18.
“Not only are they all rather watered-down, have no specific wording and were set forward absolutely without taking into account the views of the Republics’ representatives — these proposals in some ways serve as an attempt to evade the Minsk Agreements in favour of some new plans for restore peace.
However, we consider such an initiative to be not only devoid strongly marked constructive proposals, but also to some extent harmful to the peace process that has been ongoing for more than 6 years now within the framework of the Minsk diplomatic platform. We cannot follow the logic of the “Munich experts” who, for some reasons that are not obvious to us, believe that Kiev will implement new peace agreements, although the Ukrainian party openly sabotages the existing ones — the Minsk Agreements.
Moreover, the “12 steps” presented in Munich are chiefly focused on resolving security issues, missing any meaningful reference to the equally important issues of resuming the social and economic and humanitarian spheres, as well as restoring human rights. In addition, the political component of the settlement has been almost completely ignored, although it was precisely for political reasons that the conflict arose in Donbass. Respectively, this topic must be the prime focus, and not somewhere on the fringes.
That is why the position of the Republics is logical and consistent — we are committed to a Package of Measures approved by the guarantor countries and the UN Security Council, in which the most acute issues that call for shared solutions are balanced. If European diplomats want to effectively help restore peace in Donbass, let them exert all possible pressure on the Ukrainian authorities so that they finally proceed to implementing their obligations under the Minsk Agreements. It seems to be pointless to come up with any new plans because the key negotiation problem is not the lack of a clear settlement mechanism, but Kiev’s unwillingness to coordinate this mechanism with us,” Natalya Nikonorova said.