Road Map needs approval by LPR, DPR parliaments - Miroshnik
The road map on settling the Donbass conflict requires approval by not only Ukraine’s Verkhovnaya Rada, but also by the parliaments of the Lugansk and Donetsk People’s Republics, LPR representative in the Contact Group political subgroup Rodion Miroshnik said on his Telegram channel.
“The Road Map on settling the Donbass conflict has to be approved by not only the Rada, but also the LPR and DPR People’s Councils’,” Miroshnik said.
Last week, representatives of the People’s Republics who are committed to “absolutely transparent and constructive actions towards settling the conflict in Donbass,” submitted to the Contact Group a new proposal on the Road Map which has been under discussion for nearly a year.”
“Coordinated by the parties, the document called Road Map or Action Plan on which the political subgroup (of the Contact Group) is currently working, has to be approved by all the three representative bodies of the parties to the conflict, namely, Ukraine’s Verkhovnaya Rada, the LPR People’s Council and the DPR People’s Council. It is only in this case that the document is officially recognized by all the participants and becomes binding,” the LPR representative said.
It is a “constructive, consistent and compromise motion within the Minsk Agreements, “and the moment of approval of this document by parliaments has to become a starting point of the Road Map moves to settle the conflict, because earlier, they talked about the approval of the Road Map only by Ukraine’s Verkhovnaya Rada,” he said.
“Approval or refusal (to approve the document) must become for many observers a clear sign of what Ukraine is aiming at as a party to the conflict, i.e. at a settlement or protracting and continuing the bloodshed,” Miroshnik said.
“According to the Road Map draft, the parties, within three days after approving the coordinated document, have to exchange prisoners; demining works have to be launched in ten days, while the Ukrainian president, within a month, has to submit draft amendments to the Constitution to fix the “special status” of Donbass, and further as the text and provisions of the Road Map go, which have their own deadlines,” he said.
In early October 2020, LPR and DPR representatives submitted a Road Map for consideration by the Contact Group. It was a step-by-step plan for comprehensive peaceful settlements in Donbass based on the Minsk Agreements. Following numerous attempts to avoid the work on the document, Kiev brought forward its own “Plan of Joint Steps” in early November. The Ukrainian proposals had not been coordinated in the Contact Group and reflected Kiev’s position which contradicted the Minsk Agreements.
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
