Donetsk, Feb 18 - DAN. The main problem on the road towards conflict settlement in the region stems from Ukraine’s unwillingness to have direct talks with Donbass, Donetsk People’s Republic representative to the Contact Group negotiations, DPR Foreign Minister Natalia Nikonorova told the Donetsk News Agency on Tuesday.

On February 14, before the opening of the Munich Conference, a “group of leaders in issues of Euro-Atlantic security” came up with a statement on “Twelve Steps towards Greater Security in Ukraine and the Euro-Atlantic Region.”  The provisions of the document do not take into account the position of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics ignoring the fact that Ukraine systemically sabotages the implementation of earlier accords.

“If European diplomats want to effectively aid the resumption of peace efforts in Donbass, let them put all kinds of pressure on the Ukrainian leadership so that it could start fulfilling its obligations under the Minsk Agreements,” Nikonorova said. “Designing new plans seems senseless because the key problem in the negotiations is not a lack of clear settlement mechanism but Kiev’s unwillingness to implement the mechanism while coordinating these moves with us.”

The “Munich experts’ proposals” are focused on security issues and only address tangentially the humanitarian aspects, while completely ignoring the political track of the peace process, she said.

“This topic must be in the main focus, not on the sidelines. That is why the Republics’ position is logical and unchanged: we are committed to the Package of Measures approved by the guarantor countries and the UN Security Council, which reflects, in a balanced way, the most acute issues requiring joint solution,” the DPR diplomat said.

The Agreements dated September 5 and 19, 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, then adopted the Memorandum on ceasefire implementation and later on the Package of Measures for the Implementation of the Minsk Agreements.

The Package of Measures for the Implementation of the Minsk Agreements envisions a Constitutional reform in Ukraine which has to result in deep decentralisation. Special status for Donbass is a key point of the political part of the agreements.*jk