Donetsk, Dec 19 - DAN. Ukrainian representatives to the Minsk talks have not articulated concrete proposals on new areas for the disengagement of forces and hardware in Donbass, Donetsk People’s Republic envoy to the Minsk talks, the Republic’s Foreign Minister Natalia Nikonorova said late on Wednesday.
“Kiev delegates have not voiced a single concrete proposal on new possible security areas, whereas our representatives came up with real options,” Nikonorova said. “In this connection, the Republics had to remind that in order to ensure further effective progress in disengagement, it was necessary to coordinate the draft addendum to the Framework Agreement in order to regulate whatever was missed out before.”
Coordination and further approval of the project will allow to rule out in the future all problems which occurred during the disengagement in the pilot areas, and help coordinate new ones, she added.
Earlier reports said that a new round of Donbass peace talks had been held in Minsk.
On December 9, Paris hosted a summit of the leaders of the “Normandy Four” states (Germany, Russia, France, Ukraine). In the course of the talks, the parties prepared an outcome documents which stated that a number of accords had been reached. One of the expected results was the decision to carry out a prisoner exchange in Donbass under the “all verified for all verified” principle by yearend. The participants also pledged to ensure a full and comprehensive ceasefire by the end of 2019 and agreed to support the Contact Group accord on three more areas for the disengagement of forces and hardware in the conflict zone by the end of March 2020.*jk