On June 25, during the meeting of the political subgroup, Ukraine finally provided its written positions on a series of issues on the agenda, but the meeting did not bring any specific results, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the DPR Natalya Nikonorova summed up the meeting.
“We welcome the fact that this is the first time that Kiev has sent documents for the work on legal aspects of the special status of Donbass. Now that we have the written positions of both parties to the conflict—Kiev and Donbass—we can finally engage in a substantive discussion. Many issues remain uncoordinated. Unfortunately, for the time being, representatives of Kiev prefer to ignore the proposals of the Republics in this regard. But we will continue to insist that our opinion be taken into account. There cannot be any progress without that.
At the same time, Ukraine keeps persevering in its attempts to somehow refuse to enshrine the special status of Donbass in the Constitution. Instead, they propose some amendments on “decentralization” without taking into account the particularities of the Republics. The new Ukrainian representatives have never considered the mistakes of their predecessors: it is this improper “selective” approach to the obligations and negotiations that delays the Minsk process and long-hoped-for peace settlement,” Natalya Nikonorova told.
It is worth noting that Ukrainian representatives have changed their point of view and affirmed that the official position of Ukraine is the obligation to fulfill the Complex of Measures to resolve the conflict. The DPR Plenipotentiary once again called on Ukraine to engage in substantive work on its implementation. In particular, it involves enshrining provisions of the special status of Donbass in the Constitution and negotiating them with representatives of the Republics on a mandatory basis. Unilateral actions in this process are unacceptable and counterproductive.
At the meeting of the humanitarian group, the members continued discussing the topical issue of completing the exchange procedure.
“Today, the representatives of the official Kiev again tried to recuse from the commitments to finish the earlier exchange. In this regard, we had to remind them about the agreements they signed to carry out all the necessary legal proceedings in order to restore all the rights of the persons released who returned home to our territory. This is a matter of principle for us, it must be settled as soon as possible,” the DPR Plenipotentiary said.
She also noted that Ukraine has not yet confirmed the whereabouts of any person to draw up a new list for the exchange, despite the fact that more than two months ago we confirmed the whereabouts of six people.