MOSCOW, July 2. /TASS/. The authorities of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) will introduce a special regime of self-governance on the DPR territory, the republic’s head Alexander Zakharchenko said in a statement on Thursday.
The statement also says local election in Donbas will take place on October 18.
Zakharchenko said that Kiev’s recent unilateral actions on adopting amendments to Ukraine’s constitution serve as evidence that "the Kiev regime has de facto exited Minsk peace process." "Under the circumstances, the Donetsk People’s Republic has to start implementing the Minsk agreements itself in order to save them," the DPR head said, adding that the republic "starts acting immediately, without waiting for Kiev to come to its senses."
"Firstly, DPR announces that a special regime of self-governance is in force on its territory, some conditions of which are outlined in Ukraine’s law ‘on Donbass special status’, in Article 11 of the Package of measures [on implementing the Minsk accords], as well as in the draft amendments to the Ukrainian constitution that we proposed. Secondly, in accordance with Articles 4 and 12 of the Package of measures, I set local election on the DPR territory for October 18," the Donetsk News Agency quoted Zakharchenko’s statement as saying. Election will be organized in accordance with principal positions of Ukraine’s draft law on election developed by DPR and LPR (self-proclaimed Luhansk People’s Republic) and handed over to the Contact Group in the framework of "dialogue on modality of holding local election," the statement read.
"In accordance with Article 12 of the Package of measures, local election in DPR on October 18 will be held in compliance with appropriate OSCE [Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe] standards under monitoring of OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights [ODIHR] and other international organizations. The procedures of monitoring and work of observers were coordinated in the framework of the Contact Group," the statement stressed.
"Ukraine’s representatives took part in discussing and coordinating all aforementioned decisions," the statement noted. "I order the government and Central Election Commission of the Donetsk People’s Republic, together with People’s Council, to take comprehensive measure for implementing them [the decisions]. I am confident that they will let not only maintain the Minsk peace process, but also give it some dynamics. In the end, they will lead to full ceasefire in Donbass and political settlement of the global crisis that this war caused," Zakharchenko concluded.
Minsk agreements on Ukraine
The Minsk accords on the Ukrainian settlement were signed on February 12, after negotiations in the so-called "Normandy format" in the Belarusian capital Minsk, bringing together Russian President Vladimir Putin, French President Francois Hollande, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko. The talks lasted for around 14 hours. Simultaneously, a meeting of the Contact Group on Ukrainian settlement was held in Minsk.
The Minsk agreements envisage ceasefire, heavy weaponry withdrawal, prisoner exchange, local elections in Donbas, constitutional reform in Ukraine and establishing working sub-groups on security, political, economy and humanitarian components of the Minsk accords.
The Ukrainian forces and the self-defense forces of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Lugansk republics have repeatedly accused each other of violating ceasefire and other points of the Minsk agreements.