Despite the utmost importance and urgency of a humanitarian corridor through checkpoints for citizens who are badly in need of crossing the border, Kiev has not responded to any question or proposal we have asked, DPR Plenipotentiary Representative and Minister of Foreign Affairs Natalya Nikonorova said, summing up the last meeting of the Trilateral Contact Group on the conflict settlement in Donbass.
“One and a half months ago, the Republics prepared the lists of people who had valid and urgent reasons to cross the line of contact. In addition, on June 9, we sent those lists once again with a detailed description of our proposals on how to organize a humanitarian transfer across the checkpoints.
However, the Ukrainian side not only failed to respond to our proposals, but also failed to express their own position clearly. The only thing that representatives of Ukraine were able to generate was an extra meeting of the humanitarian group, referring to the practical nature of the issues under discussion. But Kiev did not give any reasoning in the form of specific proposals for such an extraordinary meeting, no one knows whether it will happen at all,” Nikonorova noted.
At the same time, the Foreign Minister stressed that all humanitarian aspects should be taken into account when discussing the border crossing procedure, including those related to preventing the spread of the coronavirus infection in the Republics.
“However, the representatives of Ukraine obviously do not care about such aspects, because with their unilateral decision to open the borders they have shown that they are indifferent to the lives and health of our people, as well as to the epidemiological situation, which might significantly worsen due to the uncontrolled passage of citizens through the checkpoints from the Ukrainian side, where, as we know, the situation with the coronavirus is quite unfavorable,” the Plenipotentiary added.
She also said that Kiev has once again disrupted negotiations on humanitarian corridors through the checkpoints. Hundreds of people, who have ended up in the difficult situation and are unable to get home, are suffering because of the totally destructive approach of Ukraine, which prefers to take unilateral controversial actions instead of engaging in honest, transparent and substantive negotiations on vitally important humanitarian issues.