Nikonorova believes Ukraine will face sanctions for derailing Donbass peace deal

Donetsk, Feb 21 – DAN. The Ukrainian leadership’s wish to derail the Minsk Agreements will lead to inevitable response from the international community, the Donetsk People’s Republic representative to the Contact Group talks, DPR Foreign Minister Natalia Nikonorova said on Friday.

Earlier in the day, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Vadim Pristaiko said in an interview with the Voice of America that the war in Donbass showed the need to introduce changes to the Minsk accords. In his view, a new document will be drawn in the future for easier implementation and results. On Thursday, Pristaiko said that Kiev was hoping for the deployment of peacekeepers on the Donbass Republics’ border with Russia.

“Pristaiko is rebroadcasting the previous government’s ideas to re-write the Package of Measures or deploy international peacekeepers in the Republics’ territory. Not a single new idea has been voiced,” Nikonorova said. “With such people at the helm of the foreign ministry, who are making all efforts towards derailing the Package of Measures, Ukraine can expect sanctions from the international community sooner or later.”

She reminded that the Minsk Agreement did not provide for the deployment of international peacekeeping forces in Donbass.

“We’ve repeatedly stated that the Republics would treat uncoordinated presence of international armed forces as an act of aggression resulting in new escalation of armed confrontation,” the diplomat said

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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.

The Package of Measures envisions a Constitutional reform in Ukraine which has to result in deep decentralisation. Special status for Donbass is a key point of the political part of the agreements.*jk

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