VIENNA, February 20. /TASS/. The head of the foreign committee at the Russian parliament's lower chamber on Friday called on the leadership of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to prevent attempts to undermine the work of an inter-parliamentary working group on Ukraine.
"This will help to create a better political atmosphere for the implementation of the Minsk agreements and indicate that deputies are not only quarrelling and pointing fingers at each other but they are also doing something to ensure the fulfilment of the reached agreements," Alexey Pushkov said, referring to the peace deal agreed by the leaders of Ukraine, Russia, Germany and France in the Belarusian capital last week.
It "would be an important step" if the inter-parliamentary group finally started its work, which "has been blocked by Ukraine and some other countries", he said.
Pushkov asked OSCE parliamentarians not to view the situation in Ukraine as black and white. "There is a tendency to blame the rebels for everything, but the truth is that bombardments of Donetsk and Luhansk are carried out by Ukrainian forces."
"Russia cannot be the only party responsible for the implementation of the Minsk agreements," he said, noting that "Germany and France, for their part, should exert influence on Kiev".
"We see no alternative to the Minsk agreements," the deputy added.
Last Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, French President Francois Hollande and German Chancellor Angela Merkel held a marathon negotiating session in Minsk seeking to reach political settlement on the future of eastern Ukraine.
The deal, announced after more than 16 hours of all-night discussions, called for a ceasefire between Ukrainian forces and people’s militias starting on February 15, followed by withdrawal of heavy weapons from the front line.