Kiev’s unwillingness to follow Minsk accords must result in guarantor countries’ sanctions – Pushilin

Donetsk, Sep 16 – DAN. Ukraine’s downright unwillingness to fulfil the commitments undertaken within the framework of the Minsk Agreements has to result in international sanctions against Kiev, Donetsk People’s Republic Head Denis Pushilin said on Monday.

At the end of last week, Kiev representative to the Contact Group Leonid Kuchma and Ukrainian Foreign Minister Vadim Pristaiko said that the Ukrainian leadership did not intend to grant special status to Donbass or amnesty conflict participants.

“If we assume that the international community is impartial, the Minsk Agreements guarantors, at least Germany and France, have to impose sanctions on Ukraine for violations of agreements, non-fulfilment of the undertaken commitments and public announcement of it by officials,” Pushilin said in a statement received by the Donetsk News Agency.

The DPR Head noted that the statements by Kuchma and Priskaiko were not unexpected because Ukraine had systemically ignored articles of the Minsk Agreements throughout all the years of negotiations.

“While talking about their commitment to “Minsk” all these years, Ukrainian politicians have been making all efforts to avoid the responsibility for not fulfilling their obligations. The articles on providing special status to Donbass and prevention of prosecution of the persons in connection with Donbass events are spelled out in the Package of Measures,  which was supported by the UN Security Council’s binding resolution. Amendments or corrections of the text of the Minsk Agreements are out of the question,” the Republic’s leader underlined.

Earlier, Pushilin said that Ukrainian representatives, despite the change of government in the country, maintained destructive rhetoric with respect to the Minsk Agreements, as Kiev was not interested in fulfilling its obligations. For her part, DPR Foreign Ministry, the Republic’s representative to the Contact Group Natalia Nikonorova described the statements by Kuchma and Pristaiko as evidence of the blatant sabotage of peaceful settlement on the part of Ukraine.

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The Agreements dated September 5 and 19, 2014 and February 12, 2015 forged by the Contact Group in Minsk make groundwork for a peaceful settlement of the Donbass conflict. The Contact Group set forth a peace plan and agreed a ceasefire, then adopted the Memorandum on ceasefire implementation and later on the Package of Measures for the Implementation of the Minsk Agreements.

It envisioned immediate and comprehensive ceasefire in Donbass, withdrawal of heavy weapons, establishment of security zones, discussion of the modalities for the resumption of payment of pensions and allowances to DPR and LPR citizens, and constitutional reform in Ukraine which should result in deep decentralisation. Special status for Donbass is a key point of the political settlement.

In early 2016, the German Foreign Minister Frank Walter Steinmeier suggested a mechanism to enforce the law on Donbass special status on the day of local elections on a temporary basis, and permanently upon the OSCE publishing its report on the elections outcome.  Despite Minsk talks participants’ positive opinion of the mechanism, Ukraine has refused to make headway in  implementing it (the Steinmeier formula is actually the road map for the political segment of the Package of Measures).*jk

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