LPR hopes new coordinator for OSCE will achieve dialogue in political group - LPR delegation
The Lugansk People’s Republic is hoping that the new coordinator for the OSCE in the Contact Group subgroup on political issues, Sylvie-Agnès Bermann, will show impartiality and achieve progress in arranging productive dialogue in the political subgroup, press secretary of the LPR delegation in the Contact Group Maria Kovshar said.
Kovshar said that “the only difference between today’s session of the (Contact Group political subgroup) and the previous ones was that Mrs Bermann has taken part in it; she will replace Mr (Pierre) Morel at the post of coordinator.”
“We hope that Mrs Bermann, as coordinator, will show proper impartiality and equal attitude to the parties to the conflict, and achieve progress in arranging productive dialogue in the subgroup,” she said.
“Today, the group’s “full-fledged work is blocked by Ukraine which cannot decide on the format of sessions. In fact, the work has not resumed: Kiev continues to refuse to offer its comments and recommendations to the Road Map draft which we brought forward eight months ago,” Kovshar said.
“Despite our readiness to start working on the subgroup’s competence and the attempts of the coordinator and other participants to return Ukraine to constructive talks, Kiev continued the tactic of sabotaging the process of peaceful settlement,” the LPR delegation press secretary said.
Earlier, Lugansk People’s Republic representative in the Contact Group political subgroup Rodion Miroshnik said that the OSCE kept silent about Kiev representatives’ blocking the Minsk talks.
The Ukrainian government launched the so-called anti-terrorist operation against Donbass in April 2014. Conflict settlement relies on the Package of Measures for the Implementation of the Minsk Agreements, signed on February 12, 2015 in the Belarussian capital by the Contact Group members and coordinated by the Normandy Four heads of states (Russia, Germany, France and Ukraine). The UN Security Council approved the document by Resolution No 2202 of February 17, 2015 and called upon the parties to ensure its implementation.
The document provides for comprehensive ceasefire, withdrawal of all heavy weapons from the contact line, starting a dialog on reconstruction of social and economic ties between Kiev and Donbass. It also envisages carrying out constitutional reform in Ukraine providing for decentralization and adopting permanent legislation on a special status of certain areas of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions.
To facilitate the work of the Contact Group, four working groups were set up under its aegis to deal with issues of security, politics, return of internally displaced people and refuges, as well as with social, humanitarian, economic and rehabilitation issues. *i*s
