Kyiv representatives to try to resolve Zolote checkpoint issue at Trilateral Group meeting on Aug 3
KYIV. July 29 (Interfax) - Iryna Herashchenko, who represents Ukraine in the humanitarian subgroup of the Trilateral Contact Group and is First Deputy Speaker in the Ukrainian parliament, is going to raise the issue of the Zolote checkpoint at the Group's next meeting on August 3.
"We travelled to the Zolote checkpoint, which was completed back in March 2016 and is ready for work, but is being blocked by the Separate Districts of Luhansk Region under idiotic and invented pretexts. This checkpoint has a daily capacity of 2,000 vehicles and 5,000 pedestrians. Its opening would considerably ease pressure on the checkpoints in Stanytsa Luhanska and Zaitseve where poor people have to queue for five or six hours," Herashchenko wrote on Facebook on Friday, commenting on the results of her working trip to Luhansk region.
At the next meeting in Minsk on August 3 she will "urge looking for compromise at least on this issue," she said. "We will be doing everything to make sure the checkpoint still opens in August. This would benefit people on both sides of the contact line," she said.
For her part, the Group's Ukrainian representative Leonid Kuchma's spokeswoman Darya Olifer, who was also on this trip, shared her impressions of the visit to Luhansk region, in particular of the situation at the Zolote checkpoint.
"This checkpoint is fully equipped and has been ready to let people in and out from March 31, 2016. As far back as last fall, the Trilateral Contact Group agreed on its opening, all parties to the consultations gave their assent. The checkpoint was built in three months by Ukrainian engineers who were working under continuous shelling by representatives of the Separate Districts of Luhansk Region, who were firing at the working and construction equipment. Nevertheless, Ukraine has fulfilled its obligations. But when cars started moving and people walking through Zolote, representatives of the Separate Districts of Luhansk Region did not let them cross the contact line. They would not let anyone in to this day," Olifer wrote on Facebook.
This issue will be raised at the next meeting in Minsk, Olifer said.
"Now we are heading back to Kyiv. I will report in detail to Leonid Danylovych everything I saw and heard. Another meeting in Minsk is due next week. We will travel to Donbas more often to defend Ukrainian interests," Kuchma's spokeswoman said.
The Zolote checkpoint was closed temporarily in 2015 for security reasons. Its re-opening in 2016 was continually postponed because of militant shelling in nearby populated areas. On March 31, 2016, the checkpoint reopened but closed again a few hours later for security reasons and because of Luhansk militia's refusal to allow people get to the checkpoint.
Meanwhile, the self-proclaimed Luhansk people's republic (LPR) said earlier that its representatives had repeatedly proposed Ukraine and the OSCE (Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe) mission to open a checkpoint in the town of Shchastya. A checkpoint in Shchastya would be "more favorable for crossing and capable of providing more comfortable conditions for crossing both by citizens of our republic and by Ukrainian citizens," LPR police spokesman Andrei Marochko said.