Ukraine stalling discussion on Zolote checkpoint opening - LPR
LUHANSK/KYIV. Oct 27 (Interfax) - Kyiv's representatives in the Trilateral Contact Group (TCG) on Ukraine have been avoiding a discussion on the opening of a checkpoint on the contact line near the town of Zolote, Vladislav Deinego, who represents the self-proclaimed Luhansk People's Republic (LPR) at the Minsk talks, said.
"The opening of the Zolote checkpoint is a Ukrainian byword. They have managed to stall the discussion of this issue at the TCG meeting in Minsk once again," Deinego said in a statement published on the website of the Luhansk information center on Friday.
At the talks, the Ukrainian side "proved unprepared to confirm its declarations with real steps," the LPR representative said. "And all their public remarks, at meetings and in the media, had the sole aim of creating a factor of tension in the discussion of the opening of a checkpoint in Zolote," Deinego said.
"All our attempts to press Ukrainian representatives into discussing real steps to open the checkpoint were met with downright reluctance bordering on active counteraction," Deinego said.
Meanwhile, Ukraine's first deputy speaker in parliament and representative in the TCG humanitarian subgroup, Iryna Herashchenko, said that it is LPR representatives who are blocking the issue.
"The results of the humanitarian subgroup. We are calling on certain areas of the Luhansk region to immediately artificially blocking the opening of the Zolote checkpoint, which has been ready for opening since March 2016. All artificial hurdles, we see them as a deliberate protraction aimed at aggravating the humanitarian situation in the Luhansk region," Herashchenko wrote on her Facebook page, stating that she attended the subgroup's meeting remotely.
The demand to open the Zolote checkpoint was also "toughly expressed" by Ukraine at the TCG meeting in Minsk on Friday, Herashchenko said.