MOSCOW, February 8. /TASS/. To stop the conflict in Donbass it is necessary to create a demilitarized zone and involve a peacekeeping contingent, Denis Pushilin, a representative of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic /DPR/ at the Contact Group talks, said on Sunday.
"We have said it more than once that such a zone is needed, as is a peacekeeping of observer contingent. It will be nearly the only possibility to stop butchery in Donbass and to prevent further combat operations," he told the Donetsk News Agency.
The initiative to create a 50 to 70 kilometre demilitarized zone as a step to settle the conflict in southeastern Ukraine was voiced earlier by French President Francois Hollande. The French leader also called for a broad autonomy for Ukraine’s eastern regions.
The self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic /DPR/ expects talks in the Normandy format to yield a mechanism of control over the implementation of the Minsk agreements, DPR’s representative at the Contact Group talks Denis Pushilin told the Donetsk News Agency.
"I expect the Normandy format talks to work out a mechanism of control over the implementation of the memorandums, both the old and the new ones," he said.
He said efforts at peace settlement of the conflict in Dinbass are hampered by the Kiev’s "party of war." "Some of these forces see they are running out of resources, possibilities, morale to win a victory in Donbass. Nonetheless, they keep on making such attempts again and again," Pushilin said.
The leaders of the Normandy Four /Russia, France, Germany and Ukraine/ have agreed to have a meeting on the Ukrainian conflict settlement in Minsk on February 11. Russian President Vladimir Putin said however such a meeting would be possible only in case of preliminary agreement of a "number of position."
The agreement about a meeting in the Belarusian capital was reached earlier on Sunday in a teleconference that was agreed during German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s and French President Francois Hollande’s brief visit to Moscow on Friday.