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Kiev needs reading again text of Minsk Accords — Putin’s spokesman

"Moscow as a guarantor of the Minsk Accords has repeatedly expressed its concern at different levels regarding Kiev’s failure to implement these agreements," Russian presidential spokesman said
Press conference following Normandy format Ukraine peace talks in Minsk (archive) Nikolai Lazarenko/Ukrainian president's press service/TASS
Press conference following Normandy format Ukraine peace talks in Minsk (archive)
© Nikolai Lazarenko/Ukrainian president's press service/TASS

MOSCOW, July 2. /TASS/. Moscow calls on the Kiev authorities to carefully re-read the text of the Minsk Accords as of February 12 on the settlement of the ongoing Ukrainian conflict, Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Thursday.

"Moscow as a guarantor of the Minsk Accords has repeatedly expressed its concern at different levels regarding Kiev’s failure to implement these agreements," Peskov told a news conference.

President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman added that "there is no need in any interpretations whatsoever, but there is an urgent need to re-read what have been signed, in particular the text of the Minsk agreements."

"It would lead to the conclusion that Kiev, unfortunately, is not implementing them," Peskov said.

Speaking about the recently approved Ukrainian constitutional amendments of the decentralization of power in the country, Peskov said "there were still no contacts at all between Kiev and representatives of Donbas."

"No doubt that approval of such bills without the consideration of the Donbas representatives’ opinion can be hardly staying in line with the implementation of the Minsk Accords," he said.

Under point 11 of the package of measures on implementing the Minsk agreements, the reform that includes the entry into force of a new constitution should be carried out by late 2015.

A constitutional commission approved a basic text of amendments to Ukraine’s key law on decentralization on June 26. Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko said that "the Donbas representatives participated in devising these amendments."

However, the leaders of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk republics, which comprise Donbas area in the southeast of the country, later said their representatives were not delegated to participate in the work of Kiev’s constitutional commission.

Minsk accords on Ukraine

The Belarusian capital of Minsk hosted on February 12 summit talks of Normandy Four leaders - Russian President Vladimir Putin, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, French President Francois Hollande and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

The over 16-hour marathon summit negotiations ended in a package of agreements, which in particular envisaged ceasefire between the Ukrainian conflicting sides starting from midnight on February 15.

Prior to the summit talks Minsk also hosted the meeting of the Contact Group on Ukraine involving Ukraine’s ex-president Leonid Kuchma, Kiev’s special representative for humanitarian issues Viktor Medvedchuk, the leaders of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics Alexander Zakharchenko and Igor Plotnitsky, and Russia’s ambassador to Ukraine Mikhail Zurabov and OSCE’s envoy Heidi Tagliavini, who both acted as mediators.

As a result of the meeting, it was announced that an agreement was reached on the ceasefire in certain districts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, the heavy weaponry pullout and measures on a long-term political settlement of the crisis.