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Developments in eastern Ukraine

Poroshenko: Donbas districts may enjoy special status only after local elections

Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko has presented to the parliament a bill on changes to the law on local self-governance in some districts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions

Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko EPA/SERGEY DOLZHENKO

Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko

© EPA/SERGEY DOLZHENKO

KIEV, March 16. /TASS/. Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko has presented to the Verkhovna Rada (parliament) a bill on changes to the law on local self-governance in some districts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, the parliament’s system said registering the draft statement on Monday.

According to the document, the special status in Donbas will be implemented only after local elections.

Read also

Ukraine’s parliament may define Donbas regions with special status this week — FM

Earlier, envoys of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics (DPR and LPR) to the Contact Group on peaceful settlement Denis Pushilin and Vladislav Deinego in a joint statement called on the parliament to adopt a document on the special status.

The Minsk agreements read, by March 14 the Verkhovna Rada should adopt an order fixing list of districts in Donbas, which will have special political and economic statuses. However, the order has not been adopted yet. Heads of the DPR and LPR Alexander Zakharchenko and Igor Plotnitsky have asked German chancellor and French president as guarantors of the Minsk agreements to press Ukraine’s authorities to implement the agreements.

On February 11, the Normandy Quartet negotiations - presidents of Russia, Ukraine and France and German chancellor - in Minsk in various formats (in private and with other delegations) lasted for the total of 16 hours from 7:15p.m. local time.

On February 12, members of the Trilateral Contact Group on the Ukrainian conflict settlement signed a four-page set of measures to implement the earlier Minsk agreements.

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