President of Ukraine Vladimir Zelensky continues to drag out the process of peaceful settlement of the conflict in Donbass. Just before, the leader of the country claimed that it is the representatives of the Normandy Four who have to sign the agreement on the additional measures for the control of the effective indefinite ceasefire so as to enforce it, DPR Minister of Foreign Affairs Natalya Nikonorova commented on his statement.
“It took us almost five months of an extremely difficult and tense negotiation process to get Ukrainian representatives to agree and sign clear commitments on the measures to ensure the ceasefire regime. It was fundamentally important to get Ukraine to sign those commitments precisely in order to deprive the Ukrainian authorities of any opportunity to ignore and sabotage the implementation of those agreements. Moreover, those measures are signed by both the Ukrainian party and the representatives of the republics, they also are authorized by the mediators to the talks: the OSCE and the Russian Federation.
It is important to understand that such agreements do not require additional signatures at all, because the most important and key fact is that the parties to the conflict — Kiev and the republics — have agreed in writing to carry out those measured, because both we and Ukraine are committed to this. Nonetheless, we are grateful to Russia and the OSCE that they supported these agreements and attested them in writing.
Nevertheless, the day after the ceasefire measures were signed, the Ukrainian president withdrew the signature of his representative to the Contact Group. Thus, Vladimir Zelensky with just one phrase canceled all the hard-won progress of the Minsk meetings in the conflict settlement. It is obvious that with such a step the Ukrainian leader has continued that destructive political line that was set by the resolution on the local elections of July 15 of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, when the Ukrainian legislation enshrined the provisions that flagrantly violate the Minsk Agreements.
In this regard, one can only guess what happened to the desire of the Ukrainian leader to reestablish peace in Donbass, about which he spoke so enthusiastically during his election campaign.
There is also a fair question of how it is possible to talk about anything at all and negotiate with those persons who participate in the meetings of the Contact Group as delegates of Ukraine, if the Ukrainian president withdraws their signatures with such ease just the next day.
We appeal to the guarantors of the Minsk Agreements and to the entire world community to exert all possible influence on the leader of Ukraine in order not to let him disrupt the agreements on which the lives of thousands of people depend. For our part, we are ready to implement all the commitments we have undertaken, but this is not a unilateral process, Ukraine must also express its will to implement the peace agreements,” Natalya Nikonorova stated.