Ukraine continues to move away from a constructive and fruitful dialogue on the approved political agenda, Minister of Foreign Affairs and DPR plenipotentiary to the Minsk talks Natalya Nikonorova commented on the Contact Group’s meeting.
“For more than five years of negotiations Kiev has not submitted any draft regulatory legal act for the Contact Group’s consideration, which clearly does not contribute to achieving positive results in the political settlement.
Moreover, at today’s meeting, Ukrainian representatives refused even to discuss a mechanism for approving these acts, which should be the basis for the political group’s work. In addition, I would like to remind you that at the meeting of February 12, a representative of Ukraine undertook to provide a list of regulatory legal acts to be agreed upon within the Contact Group in the process of implementing the Complex of Measures. However, this list has not been provided yet, although the mediators in the person of the Russian Federation sent the Ukrainian party the proposed directions based on which this list could be formed,” Nikonorova stated.
She also noted that there had not been particular progress in discussing the draft Rules and Procedures for the Contact Group and specialized subgroups.
“Despite the fact that Ukraine has provided its written proposals for this document, there is still a long way to go to arrive at a consensus on this issue, as the draft that Ukraine proposes contradicts the essence of the Complex of Measures and peace talks in general,” the Foreign Minister added.
The DPR plenipotentiary called on Ukraine to finally provide its written position not only on the draft Rules and Procedures, but also on each of the items on the political agenda, since it will be possible to set to substantive and effective work on the political track only when draft amendments to the Constitution of Ukraine on enshrining the special status of Donbass appear on the negotiating table.