Donetsk, Sep 10 - DAN. The Minsk working group on security held an extraordinary meeting via videoconference on Tuesday to discuss the disengagement of forces and hardware in pilot areas in Donbass, the Donetsk People’s Republic Foreign Ministry said.
“Today, the working group on security had a video conference to review the schedule to remedy the violations in the disengagement zones “Petrovka - Bogdanovka” and “Zolotoye,” the Ministry said.
On Monday, Donetsk and Lugansk passed the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission their proposals and were ready to discuss other options, but Ukraine had not presented its timetable. Instead, Kiev suggested discussing the Stanitsa Luganskaya situation which had nothing to do with the matter.
“Obviously, tying up these two absolutely different processes blocks coordination and implementation of the plan for eliminating the existing breaches in the disengagement zones. Ukraine is deliberately delaying the process and has no intention to eliminate its violations,” DPR diplomats said.
The Contact Group participants - DPR, LPR, Ukraine, Russia and OSCE signed the framework agreement on disengagement of forces in Donbass in late September 2016. It sets three pilot security areas in Petrovskoye (DPR territory), Stanitsa Luganskaya and Zolotoye (LPR). Each withdrawal area measures at least 2 kilometres wide and 2 kilometres deep.
The disengagement was completed in the Petrovskoye and Zolotoye areas in October 2016. In Stanitsa Luganskaya, it was completed on June 30, 2019. Meanwhile, the DPR and LPR repeatedly reported an unstable situation in the Petrovskoye and Zolotoye disengagement zones where Ukrainian troops were spotted again. Donetsk and Lugansk demand that Kiev restore the parity and pull back its troops from the withdrawal areas.*jk