Today’s round of the talks was devoted to political matters of the Complex of Measures, and it did not lead to significant progress, Kiev only complicates the already rather complicated course of the peaceful reconciliation, the DPR MFA reports.
“We can only welcome the fact that the Ukrainian side actually decided to implement the idea about spokespersons for the public (Consultative Council), which was decided and enshrined in the record of the Contact Group’s meeting on March 11, which was signed by the authorized representatives of Ukraine, the Republics and mediators represented by the OSCE and the Russian Federation. This might be the beginning of a direct dialogue between the publics of the two parties to the conflict. However, the current status of the people whom Kiev involved, their reputation and ability to represent the interests of any public in a real and honest way are very questionable, so even the Ukrainian public is negatively predisposed toward their involvement in the talks at the Minsk venue. We believe that these people should be picked in the course of public discourse and direct dialogue, and they should represent the public and its different social groups and categories in a comprehensive way. Those people who attended the meeting today were described as “members of the Ukrainian delegation to advise Ukrainian representatives,” Natalya Nikonorova highlighted.
As for the approved political agenda, Ukraine has submitted for the Contact Group’s consideration its reaction to the document that we proposed at the last meeting May 27.
“We have received the first document in the history of the political group. It was the reaction of the Ukrainian representatives to the act, which we proposed, on amendments to the law on the special status of Donbass. We have already got acquainted with this project and sent our comments on it in response.
However, this document, which Kiev sent, has little in common with those provisions that really should be included in the law on the special status of Donbass. It was actually a nominal paper that refers only to the insertion of Steinmeier’s formula into one of the articles of this law, without making correspondent and consequent amendments to other articles of the law. We would like to remind once again that in addition to making changes to the law on the special status in terms of the procedure of its entry into force, it is necessary that the Contact Group works out and coordinates the entire range of legal aspects of the special status of Donbass, including its permanent enshrinement in the Constitution, as it is set out in the Complex of Measures and in the communiqué from the Normandy Four’s summit,” Natalya Nikonorova added.