KIEV, June 23. /TASS/. There is no progress in Ukraine in drafting a bill on elections in the Donbass region, Ukraine’s representative to the political subgroup of the Contact Group on the settlement in eastern Ukraine Olga Aivazovskaya told 112 Ukraine TV channel on Thursday.
"This document (on Donbass elections) doesn’t exist as such," she said, adding that "the Ukrainian parliament will not consider it until the end of the current session (July 22).
According to Aivazovskaya, a bill on Donbass elections is not discussed at the Contact Group talks in Minsk either. "This document cannot be drafted within the Minsk process, because we only discuss the modality of the elections. Preparing legislative initiatives is the Verkhovna Rada’s responsibility," Aivazovskaya said. She admitted though that "there are concepts, certain guidelines on preparing this electoral process, its organization and procedural nuances are discussed."
Verkhovna Rada member of the Samopomosch (Self-Reliance) political party Roman Semenukha earlier said that the Ukrainian parliament is to vote on a bill on elections in the Donbass territories outside Kiev’s control on July 14. In view of this, envoys of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics to the Contact Group Denis Pushilin and Vladislav Deynego said in a statement addressed to German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande that, in accordance with the Minsk agreements, the law on Donbass elections should be coordinated with representatives of the two republics. "The Package of Measures clearly states that all laws and regulations must be coordinated with representatives of the Donetsk and Lugansk republics. Over the past eighteen months we have submitted numerous drafts of constitutional amendments and a bill on elections, but there has been no response from the Ukrainian side. We do not recognize Ukraine’s laws not coordinated with Donbass, and, of course, we are not going to hold the elections according to them," the statement said.