MOSCOW, January 19. /TASS/. The working subgroup on economic issues of the Contact Group on Ukrainian settlement will not hold a meeting in the Belarusian capital city Minsk this week, Vladislav Deinego, the chief negotiator for the self-proclaimed Luhansk People’s Republic (LPR), said on Tuesday.
"The humanitarian and security subgroups will begin their meetings at 13:00 local time tomorrow. The political subgroup started today. They are discussing elections-related issues. The economic subgroup is not meeting this time," he told LugansInformCenter.
He said tomorrow’s subgroup meetings would be followed by a meeting of the Trilateral Contact Group.
The Trilateral Contact Group on Ukraine comprising senior representatives from Russia, Ukraine and the European security watchdog OSCE on February 12, 2015, signed a 13-point Package of Measures to fulfil the September 2014 Minsk agreements. The package was agreed with the leaders of the Normandy Four, namely Russia, Germany, France and Ukraine.
The Package of Measures, known as Minsk-2, envisaged a ceasefire between Ukrainian government forces and people’s militias in the Donetsk and Luhansk self-proclaimed republics starting from February 15 and subsequent withdrawal of heavy weapons from the line of engagement. The deal also laid out a roadmap for a lasting settlement in Ukraine, including local elections and constitutional reform to give more autonomy to the war-torn eastern regions.To spur up the work of the Contact Group, four working subgroups were set up within it on four key aspects of the Minsk agreements, namely on issues of security; on political issues; on issues of prisoner exchange and refuges; and on social, humanitarian and economic aspects.