Donetsk, Jul 5 - DAN. Negotiations between the Donetsk People’s Republic and Ukraine are held strictly within the framework of the Minsk process towards a peaceful settlement of the Donbass conflict, the DPR envoy to the Minsk talks, parliament speaker Denis Pushilin said on Thursday in comments on the statement by Ukrainian politician Yulia Timoshenko made earlier in the day.
“At the present time, the dialogue between the Republic and Ukrainian authorities runs strictly within the framework of the Minsk talks which are the only mechanism to resolve the Donbass conflict peacefully,” Pushilin said following Timoshenko’s statement alleging Ukrainian President Petr Poroshenko’s negotiations with the DPR and LPR leaders.
Timoshenko claimed that Poroshenko was in talks with the DPR and LPR leadership. The Ukrainian president’s rival also alleged that Poroshenko aimed to heighten tensions in Donbass in order to introduce martial law in Ukraine and use it as a pretext to cancel the presidential election scheduled for March 2019.*jk