The Contact Group’s subgroups on security, political,
humanitarian issues and on economic aspects will hold meetings in Minsk on
Wednesday.
MINSK, August 3. /TASS/. The issue de-escalation of the
situation along the contact line of the conflict sides in Donbass is still on
the agenda of the Contact Group on the settlement of the situation in the east
of Ukraine. The group participants will meet in the Belarusian capital Minsk on
Wednesday to negotiate a peaceful solution to the problem.
The Contact Group’s subgroups on security, political,
humanitarian issues and on economic aspects will also hold meetings in Minsk on
Wednesday.
New attempt
The security subgroup was supposed to agree on a
document on the disengagement of the conflict sides in a number of areas along
the contact line. In particular, according to Russia’s chief negotiator in the
Contact Group Boris Gryzlov, the sides considered a possibility to create up to
10 security zones, including in the areas adjacent to the checkpoints. However,
they have failed to come to terms so far.
Meanwhile, Ambassador Martin Sajdik, the Special
Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office in Ukraine and in the
Trilateral Contact Group on the implementation of the peace plan in the East of
Ukraine, commenting on the results of the group’s meeting held on July 27, sad
that the issue of the disengagement of forces would be discussed at the next
meeting of the security subgroup on August 3.
Viktoria Talakina, the press secretary of the
self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic’s (DPR) chief negotiator Denis
Pushilin, said for her part that despite the best efforts of the DPR and LPR
republic’s negotiators, the only agreed disengagement points remain Petrovskoye
and Zolotoye.
On July 28, at a meeting of the OSCE Permanent Council
in Vienna with the participation of Martin Sajdik and the political subgroup coordinator
Ertugrul Apakan, Russia's permanent representative to OSCE Alexander
Lukashevich said that "the first step toward de-escalation (in Donbass)
should be the earliest agreement in the Contact Group on the parameters of the
disengagement of the sides’ forces parties and the creation of demilitarized
zones on the contact line." He added that it is necessary to
simultaneously ensure political guarantees of security for the residents of the
southeast of Ukraine. "To this end, Kiev should agree with representatives
of separate districts of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions on the permanent
legislation on the special status of these districts and the decentralization
amendments to the Constitution of Ukraine", the Russian permanent
representative said.
Security and political settlement - parallel
processes
Russia’s chief negotiator Boris Gryzlov said he was
certain that the issues of security in Donbass should not impede the political
settlement progress. "The security issue should not become a stumbling
block to the solution of other political questions. Otherwise, the settlement
process will be dependent on those who do not want peace in Donbas," he
said.
Gryzlov also proposed to regulate and record the work of
the Contact Group’s subgroups, socially the political subgroup. This is
important, according to the official, for "fixing the reached agreements,
and not to return to the discussion of issues over and over again." He
reiterated that any progress in matters of security must be accompanied by the
political settlement progress.
Denis Pushilin accused the Kiev authorities of dragging
out the Minsk-2 political issues’ settlement. Even the progress made in the
negotiations, in particular by the political subgroup, is neutralized by the
frequent change of Kiev’s representatives, he said. According to him, the work
of the group has now returned to the situation of May 2015, because the
Ukrainian representatives lack full powers and due to the fact that not all the
reached agreements are formalized.
Political agenda
The Contact Group’s political subgroup will return to
the discussion on Wednesday of the roadmap for the implementation of the Minsk
agreements, prevention of persecution of the Donbass events’ participants and the
modalities of the elections.
DPR Acting Foreign Minister Natalia Nikonorova said that
at the previous meeting, the political subgroup members received from the
Contact Group a direct instruction to clearly define and submit for initialing
all the points on which the parties have reached consensus. "There are not
many of them, but they exist," she said, adding that Kiev had to present
its position on these issues back on July 29 via its coordinator, but has
failed to do so.
Nikonorova said she hoped that the Ukrainian
representatives on Wednesday would at least not refuse from the matters long
agreed upon. "If the situation on the diplomatic front is stalled further,
we are concerned over its possible aggravation in the military sphere: shelling
attacks on our territories have intensified of late", she said.
The official also said that at the meeting of the
Contact Group Special Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office in
Ukraine Martin Sajdik would be presented signatures of Donbas residents under a
petition on Ukraine’s non-fulfilment of the Minsk agreements. "We hope
that all these signatures, and there are more than 300,000 of them, will get
the attention of not only Kiev, but also of the leaders of the guarantor
countries," she said.
Source: ITAR-TASS 03-08-2016