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Kiev rejects all attempts to adopt law on amnesty, special status of Donbas

Ukraine has no need to adopt the new law as it has the legal basis that meets the Minsk agreements and is enough for solving all the issues, deputy head of Kiev presidential administration says

KIEV, October 5. /TASS/. Kiev rejected all the attempts of endorsing a law on amnesty for the Donbas representatives and the eastern Ukrainian region’s special status at the Paris summit on Friday, the deputy head of the Ukrainian presidential administration told reporters.

"We rejected any attempts to adopt a law on amnesty so that the automatic amnesty for the gunmen of the so-called DPR and LPR should take place," Konstantin Eliseyev said.

Kiev "has no need to adopt the new law on amnesty and special status of Donbas," he stressed. "We have the entire legal basis that meets the Minsk agreements and is enough for solving all the issues."

"We have no ‘special status’ term in our vocabulary. We only have the law on the special regime of local self-government in certain areas of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions," the official said.

The leaders of Russia, Germany, France and Ukraine on Friday held talks in Paris in the Normandy format. According to Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov, the talks were "intense and businesslike."

He said the leaders discussed the course of implementation of the Minsk agreements, including withdrawal of armaments, elections, amnesty, gas issues and other crises, namely air services. The Kremlin spokesman said the sides held constructive talks and confirmed that the Minsk deals have no alternative.

"If make sure that Kiev moves ahead along a path of real implementation of the accords — not interpretations — then there is hope that ice may be broken and shifts may be made towards amnesty and political reforms and the regions’ special status along with the holding of local elections," Peskov said.

Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said earlier on Monday that the southeast Ukrainian Donbas region should be granted a special status on a permanent basis, which should be fixed in the Ukrainian Constitution. "The special status should be granted on a permanent basis, and not for two of three years, and should be fixed in the Constitution of Ukraine," he said. "It’s put it in black and white in the Minsk agreements."

The leaders of the ‘Normandy four’ states (Russia, Germany, France and Ukraine) met for a summit in Paris on October 2 to discuss the possibility of the adoption by the Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada of a separate law on elections in the territories of Donbas beyond the control of Kiev. Local elections in certain districts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions are among the provisions of the February 12 comprehensive action plan to fulfil the Minsk accords worked out by the leaders of Russia, Ukraine, Germany and France in the search for peace in the embattled eastern Donbas region.