Viktor Medvedchuk
said earlier that outgoing Ukrainian President Pyotr Poroshenko’s lack of
political will was the main reason why the prisoner exchange process had
stalled.
KIEV, May 11. /TASS/.
It is possible to exchange prisoners in Donbass in three to five days if
Ukraine’s President-Elect Vladimir Zelensky shows political will, Chairman of
the Political Council of Ukraine’s Opposition Platform - For life party Viktor
Medvedchuk wrote on Twitter on Saturday.
"It is possible
to free our guys in Donetsk and Lugansk (there are 62 of them there) in three
to five days. Zelensky needs to show political will for that," the tweet
reads.
Medvedchuk said
earlier that outgoing Ukrainian President Pyotr Poroshenko’s lack of political
will was the main reason why the prisoner exchange process had stalled.
According to Medvedchuk, this is why he refused to participate in meetings of
the Contact Group on resolving the situation in eastern Ukraine. In his view,
the Ukrainian authorities had no intention to implement previously reached
agreements on the "all-for-all" prisoner exchange.
The
"all-for-all" prisoner swap is one of the key features of the Package
of Measures for the Implementation of the Minsk Agreements, singed in February
2015. The latest prisoner exchange took place on December 27, 2017. Kiev handed
233 prisoners to the Donbass republics and received 73 prisoners in return.
Both parties stressed that the prisoner exchange process had not been completed
and they were determined to do everything possible to continue it. However, the
parties have so far been unable to reach new agreements on the issue.
Source: ITAR-TASS
12-05-2019
