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Foreign diplomatic corps gathers for Ukrainian Rada meeting on Constitution amendments

Vice speaker Oksana Syroed earlier said there had been unprecedented pressure on lawmakers from the West

Verkhovna Rada Mikhail Markiv/Ukrainian presidential press service/TASS

Verkhovna Rada

© Mikhail Markiv/Ukrainian presidential press service/TASS

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Ukraine’s parliament not poised to vote for Poroshenko’s constitutional amendments — MP

KIEV, July 16. /TASS/. Diplomats of several Western countries have gathered for the Verkhovna Rada session, which is expected to vote for passing the constitutional amendments on the status of the war-torn Donbas region. Vice speaker Oksana Syroed earlier said there had been unprecedented pressure on lawmakers from the West.

"At the moment tremendous pressure is exerted on the people’s deputies on the part of the international community" so that the self-proclaimed republics of Donetsk and Luhansk "are granted a special status in our Constitution." "They point to the necessity to ‘demonstrate the implementation of the Minsk agreements," she said.

President Petro Poroshenko finalized and resubmitted to the Verkhovna Rada on July 15 the amendments to the Ukrainian Constitution. While the draft amendments submitted on July 1 contained the provision stating that the status of separate regions of the Donetsk and Luhansk republics was determined by a special law in the transitional articles on the bill on the amendments, now this provision has been included in the transitional articles of the Ukrainian Constitution.

US Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and US Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt are attending the Ukrainian parliament session, and 10 vehicles of foreign diplomatic missions have been spotted near the parliament buildings. President Poroshenko is expected to arrive as well.

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