Donetsk, Mar 18 - DAN. The deliberate breakdown of the Contact Group session by Ukraine ruins not only the prospects for progress at the Minsk talks but also the foundation of the whole peace process, Donetsk People’s Republic representative at the Contact Group talks, DPR Foreign Minister Natalia Nikonorova said on Thursday.
On Wednesday, Ukrainian representatives derailed Contact Group talks as they were not willing to hold dialogue with DPR activists. For its part, Donetsk rejected Kiev’s proposal to bar DPR community representative Maya Pirogova from the negotiations.
“As a result of Ukrainian representatives’ demarche yesterday, the work on political settlement stagnates further. Kiev made it clear that instead of overcoming the situation, it would rather create an illusion in the mass media space of its productive work at the Minsk talks,” Nikonorova said.
She added that she was indignant at the comment by Minister for Donbass “Reintegration” Alexey Reznikov following the Contact Group session on March 17, who claimed that “the Ukrainian delegation suggested returning to the tripartite format.” It is Ukraine that violated the established Contact Group format by inviting its “community experts.” Meanwhile, the productive proposals to restore the old format came from Donbass, not Kiev, Nikonorova said.
“With every intentional breakdown of talks, Ukraine ruins not only the prospects for at least tiny progress at the Minsk talks but also the foundation of the whole peace process in general, which was built with so much effort over these six years,” the DPR diplomat said.
The Contact Group had a video conference on Thursday. Ukraine not only delayed it by two hours, but also cut short the meeting during the discussion of political issues.
Former Ukrainian deputy emergencies minister Vladislav Telichko and DPR blogger Marya Pirogova have been community representatives in the Minsk subgroup on political issues since the first round of talks this year. LPR community representatives take part in the talks as well.*jk