Donetsk, May 27 - DAN. Ukraine’s idea to move the Donbass peace talks venue from Minsk makes no sense, Donetsk People’s Republic parliamentarian, head of the parliament committee for foreign policy, international relations, information policy and IT Vladislav Berdichevsky told the Donetsk News Agency on Thursday.
Earlier, head of the Ukrainian delegation in the Contact Group Leonid Kravchuk told Ukraine 24 Channel that Minsk could no longer be the venue for talks and that a new location had to be found. He explained it by Ukraine’s completely cutting air traffic with Belarus and ‘dictatorial behaviour’ of Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko.
“Moving the venue will change nothing as Ukraine remains intractable blocking the work of practically all subgroups,” Berdichevskiy said. “It’s not the venue or their negotiating team that has to be changed, but the Ukrainian leadership. Kravchuk’s statement is his whim, craziness and a new attempt to seek the limelight using the Minsk talks topic.”
The DPR delegation at the Minsk talks shares this view. It pointed out at the sabotage of the peace settlement by Kiev which has made far-fetched remarks about the parties to the Donbass conflict and the odd proposals of venue change, devoid of sense and expediency.”
Earlier, DPR Head Denis Pushilin said that it made no sense to look for a new peace talks venue. “A venue has no meaning if one is not willing to negotiate,” he said.
The decision to move the Donbass peace talks online was made in the first half of 2020 due to the threat of spread of the coronavirus infection. From that time on, the Contact Group and its dedicated subgroups held talks via video conferences.*jk