Donetsk opposes any changes to sequence of implementing Minsk Agreements - Pushilin
DONETSK. Dec 2 (Interfax) - The self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) has described Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's speculations on changing the sequence of enforcing the provisions of the Minsk Agreements as demagogy.
"The statements on intentions to discuss and modify the sequence of actions, which are envisaged under the Minsk Agreements, reveal that the Ukrainian president misunderstands the foundations of international law, and his real attitude to Ukrainian interstate documents and commitments. Meanwhile, Zelensky seriously overestimates his significance in geopolitics," DPR leader Denis Pushilin told Interfax on Monday.
Ukraine's unreliability and the lack of ability to reach agreements has already "become the talk of the town," he said.
"The Kyiv authorities should not forget on which conditions Ukraine signed the agreements in the Belarusian capital each time, when there were no other options to save their army. No one allowed it to dictate its conditions and the sequence of implementing the points of the treaty either then or what's more now. It has not to interpret them in line with narrow-minded politicians' wishes, but unconditionally fulfil them," Pushilin said.
DPR Foreign Minister Natalya Nikonorova, in turn, told reporters that before holding local elections, Kyiv would have to enforce the Donbas special status law, and pursue a constitutional reform and enact the law on amnesty.
"The statements of the Ukrainian president, who in no way can reconcile with the true point of the Package of Measures, are essentially nothing but any attempt to revise the Minsk Agreements and interpret them in a way profitable for the Ukrainian authorities," she said.
However, in spite of this, in any case Kyiv will have to "accept the fact that it is necessary to do a huge amount of joint work with representatives of the Republics to implement the Minsk Agreements ahead of the Donbas elections," Nikonorova said.
"In particular, the Donbas special status law should be enacted given all of the amendments to it required and approved by representatives of the Republics, a constitutional reform should be carried out with the special status being formalized clearly in line with Package of Measures, the modalities of avoiding the prosecution of participants of the events in Donbas and many other things should be worked out and endorsed at the level of the law," she said.
Kyiv "has no rights to put forth any conditions," Nikonorova added.
"Totally all of the steps, which are related to the future of Donbas, must comply with the Minsk Agreements and must be approved with the Republics. If the Ukrainian leadership wants to accelerate the holding of elections that is generally the final one of all political issues, it is better to end making loud and totally baseless statements and begin the constructive activities, that is, for fulfilling its commitments taken up under the Package of Measures," she said.
The most complicated issue at the talks with Russia at a Normandy Four summit, which is being prepared, will be the discussion on the sequence of actions regarding the settlement of the Donbas crisis, Zelensky said earlier. It is first necessary to regain the control over the border between the DPR and Russia, and, then, hold local elections in Donbas, he said.