Donetsk, Nov 23 - DAN. The Ukrainian representatives on Tuesday switched off their webcams during the video conference of the subgroup on political issues, following the Donetsk People’s Republic delegation's proposal to discuss further work on the draft Road Map for the implementation of the Minsk Agreements, DPR Deputy Foreign Minister, the Republic’s representative in the political subgroup Natalia Mikhailova said.
“To step up the negotiations we called upon all the participants to return to the discussion of the absolutely transparent and clear proposal to find the common things and the differences in the versions submitted by the Republics and Kiev, and their conformity to the Package of Measures,” Mikhailova said. “However, Kiev delegates rejected this initiative without any arguments stating that for them the Road Map version of the Republics did not exist. As soon as attempts were made to discuss the text of the future project, the Ukrainian representatives pointedly switched off the videoconferencing cameras.”
She said that before that, the Kiev representatives had brought forward “unsubstantiated ultimatums: either all the participants of the talks discuss whatever is convenient to Ukraine, namely philosophical questions such as ‘what are the Minsk Agreements?’ or the discussion does not take place at all.”
“How it can help settle the conflict in our territory is unclear, especially because the answer to this question has long been known,” Mikhailova said.
The Contact Group talks over the settlement in Donbass became complicated after the Ukrainian parliament adopted a resolution on local elections last summer, whose article four contradicts the Minsk Agreements. It was suggested that the subgroup's work be reanimated by approving the appropriate Road Map, In October 2020, the DPR and the LPR sent to the Contact Group a draft Road Map to implement the Minsk accords. Ukraine did not respond but a month later Kiev presented its own “plan of steps.” The DPR said that 78 percent of the document was a violation of the Package of Measures. In late September 2021, DPR representatives said they had drawn a new Road Map. It was sent to the OSCE for circulation between all the participants. On October 12, the OSCE presented the document at the video conference of the political subgroup, but Kiev refused to discuss it.*jk