Donetsk, Dec 7 - DAN. Ukrainian representatives in the Contact Group subgroup on political issues have refused to submit to other negotiators a draft law on amending the Constitution of Ukraine with respect to decentralization of power, Donetsk People’s Republic Deputy Foreign Minister, DPR representative in the political subgroup Natalia Mikhailova said on Tuesday.

“The Ukrainian representatives said at today's session that the text of a future constitutional amendment on decentralization of power had been posted on the Verkhovanaya Rada (parliament) website. Instead of forwarding the document to the subgroup for discussing and coordinating, with the Republics’ representatives, the final version’s provisions on the special status of Donbass, as dictated by the Minsk Agreements, a Ukrainian delegate rejected joint work on the text and recommended to find the draft document on the website,” Mikhailova said.

She said that the Ukrainian representatives had offered Donetsk and Lugansk to email their comments on the draft to the Ukrainian parliament as “proposals from private individuals.”

“It’s up to the (Verkhovnaya) Rada to decide if it accepts them or not. This position fully contradicts Article 11 of the Package of Measures which states in black and white the necessity to agree, directly with the Donbass representatives, all the substantial changes to the constitution concerning the special status of our territories,” the DPR deputy foreign minister said.

The Agreements dated September 5 and 20, 2014 and February 12, 2015 forged by the Contact Group in Minsk make groundwork for a peaceful settlement of the Donbass conflict. The Contact Group set forth a peace plan and agreed a ceasefire and then adopted the Memorandum on ceasefire implementation and later on the Package of Measures for the Implementation of the Minsk Agreements. It envisioned immediate and comprehensive ceasefire in Donbass, withdrawal of heavy weapons, establishment of security zones, discussion of the modalities for the resumption of payment of pensions and allowances to DPR and LPR citizens, and constitutional reform in Ukraine which should result in deep decentralization (including a reference to the   specificities  of  certain  areas  in  the  Donetsk  and  Lugansk  regions,  agreed  with  the   representatives of these areas). jk