Tighter border controls needed for east Ukraine — Poroshenko

KIEV, June 5. /TASS/. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko told reporters on Friday that tighter rules were needed for crossing the disengagement line in east Ukraine's war-torn Donbas region, speaking one day after telling parliament that restored economic and social ties with Donbas areas beyond Kiev’s control was impossible unless the border with Russia was secured.

But Poroshenko’s statement contradicts terms of peace accords reached in Minsk, Belarus, in February, officials from east Ukraine’s self-proclaimed republics of Donetsk and Luhansk say.

"The Complex of Measures [to fulfil the Minsk deal] explicitly states that the economic blockade [of Donetsk and Luhansk regions] should be lifted unconditionally and with no strings attached," said Vladislav Deinego, the Luhansk republic’s envoy to the Trilateral Contact Group of senior representatives from Ukraine, Russia and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE).

Kiev was to establish control over the border "only after [local] elections are held", Deinego said, adding that "Poroshenko has turned everything upside down."

"This indicates that he does not want to fulfil the Minsk agreements in the form in which they have been outlined," he said, referring to Point Nine of the February "complex" signed by leaders of Russia, Ukraine, Germany and France.

This said "reinstatement of full control of the state border by the government of Ukraine throughout the conflict area" should "start on day one after local elections and end after the comprehensive political settlement."

The deal also noted that the entire process should be carried out "with and upon agreement by representatives of certain areas of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions in the framework of the Trilateral Contact Group".