Donetsk, Mar 1 - DAN. The Donbass ‘reintegration’ law does not exempt Kiev from meeting its Minsk Agreements commitments, DPR envoy to Minsk talks, parliament speaker Denis Pushilin told Donetsk News Agency on Thursday.
“Ukrainian policymakers’ latest legislative initiatives aimed at excusing their crimes against Donbass, do not exempt Ukraine from meeting its commitments on The Package of Measures for the Implementation of the Minsk Agreements, supported by UN Security Council Resolution 2202 of 17 February 2015,” Pushilin said in a statement received by DAN.
The agenda of the Minsk working group on politics approved two years ago has not lost its significance, Pushilin said. At the meeting in Minsk on 28 February, DPR and LPR continued to insist on finalising the mechanisms for enacting the Donbass special status law.
On 20 February, Ukrainian President Petr Poroshenko signed the law “On the peculiarities of state policy on the restoration of the state sovereignty of Ukraine over the temporarily occupied territory of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Ukraine” (so called Donbass ‘reintegration’ law).
The document recognises Donbass areas as ‘occupied’ territories and calls Russia an “aggressor country.” A majority of lawyers believe that ‘reintegration’ essentially means legal approval of the use of force in the region to resolve the conflict, which contradicts the Minsk Agreements aimed at a peaceful settlement. *jk