Donetsk, Oct 26 – DAN. The Ukrainian side bluntly defied the need for constructive work during today’s Contact Group’s subgroup on political issues meeting, a DPR envoy said.
“The Ukrainian reps continuously block the political group’s work as they deny that the Donbass local self-government order law is the base for implementation of all the political points of the Package of Measures. They also deny the Steinmeier’s formula as a comprehensive mechanism for bringing this law into that has been twice agreed to by the Normandy Four leaders,” said DPR envoy to political working subgroup acting Foreign Minister Natalia Nikonorova.
She stressed that the law and the formula together form a base for a road map for further comprehensive political settlement of the conflict.
“But the Ukrainian reps act their usual way defying all previous agreements and their own statements made at previous meetings. And when at some point of the meeting our opponents ran out of political arguments they turned back to claiming the necessity of solving security issues,” Nikonorova explained.
The DPR envoy hopes that the Ukrainian reps to the political working group will be “properly instructed on the importance of the local self-government order law and the Steinmeier’s formula and will have clear position confirmed by their representatives at the Normandy Four format” so that the next meeting scheduled on November, 9th is constructive.
Steinmeier's formula outlines the principles of implementation of the Ukrainian law “On local self-government order in certain areas of the Donetsk and Lugansk region”. According to the German Foreign Minister plan, the law should be enforced on the day of local elections on a temporary basis, and permanently upon OSCE publishing its report on the elections outcome.