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Verkhovna Rada plenary session to focus on situation in Donbass

KIEV, November 27. /TASS/. The situation in Donbass will be the key issue in the work of the Ukrainian parliament, which will gather for its first plenary session on Thursday.

The Petro Poroshenko Bloc party and the People’s Front led by Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseny Yatsenyuk intends to be committed to the Minsk agreements. “We are called the Petro Poroshenko Bloc party because we support the policy that the Ukrainian president is pursuing. Poroshenko strictly spoke about the peaceful solution of the problem,” member of the Petro Poroshenko Bloc party, Pavel Rozenko, said.

Yatsenyuk links the settlement of the crisis with the implementation of the agreements. “The Minsk protocol is the way that can bring peace to Ukraine,” he said.

The Opposition Bloc favours the diplomatic settlement. Its members say all deputies of the new parliament must exert maximum effort to restore peace in eastern Ukraine exclusively by diplomatic means.

The Batkivshchina party says the change of the format of talks should facilitate the settlement of the crisis. “Our purpose is to come to the Geneva format in which representatives of the European Union, the USA, Ukraine and the Russian Federation will take part,” Yuli Timoshenko said.

Deputies of the Radical Party refuse to recognise the truce in Donbass. “There is no truce. This is the fake thought out by the authorities,” former deputy commander of the Azov battalion Igor Mosiichuk said.

The Samopomoshch party led by Lvov Mayor Andrei Savody proposes to recognise the part of Donbass as the occupied territory. “Any financial, administrative and other relationship with these territories should be built on the fact that they are occupied,” the party members said.

Leader of the working group for preparing the first plenary session Vladimir Groisman said, “We should form a temporary presidium and form the leadership of the parliament.”

On Thursday, the parliament will form the party coalition, which will include 304 deputies of the Petro Poroshenko Bloc party, the People’s Front, the Samopomoshch party, the Radical Party and the Batkivschina. “The candidature for Ukraine’s premiership will be submitted to the coalition from the People’s Front,” Groisman said.

Earlier, Poroshenko said he was ready to support incumbent Prime Minister Arseny Yatsenyuk’s for Ukraine’s premiership.

The People’s Front and the Petro Poroshenko Bloc party are the main players in the newly elected Verkhovna Rada. Deputies say Vice-Premier Groisman will be elected chairman of the parliament. The president’s team agreed to give the premier’s team the posts of justice and interior ministers. They will be led by Pavel Peternko and Arsen Avakov. The incumbent Rada chairman, one of the leaders of the People’s Front, Alexander Turchinov, may leave the post of secretary of the National Security and Defence Council.

Experts do not rule out that he can lead the People’s Front parliamentary faction.