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Lugansk envoy says Kiev derails Minsk accords

The envoy of the self-proclaimed Lugansk People’s Republic Ukraine’s says representatives in the political subgroup of the Contact Group are doing their best to shy away from dialogue

MOSCOW, December 20. /TASS/. Ukraine’s representatives in the political subgroup of the Contact Group are doing their best to shy away from dialogue, which could derail the peaceful settlement process in the Donbass region, envoy of the self-proclaimed Lugansk People’s Republic (LPR) to the political subgroup Rodion Miroshnik told TASS following meeting in Minsk on Wednesday.

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"Today Ukraine failed to provide any substantial reasons for its refusal to discuss the mechanism for enacting the Donbass special status. There is no other explanation than their desire to shy away from dialogue," he said.

According to Miroshnik, "the round of talks was dedicated only to Kiev’s statements about what issues it would like to discuss." However, those were not the issues endorsed by the Contact Group members, including Ukraine’s representatives, he said.

"The inability of the Ukrainian representatives to the political group to negotiate poses a threat to the entire Minsk process, since it is impossible to talk about a full end to the conflict without reaching agreements on the prospects for a political settlement. However, Kiev is doing its utmost to derail these agreements," the LPR envoy stressed.

He noted that "representatives of LPR and DPR, just like Russia, insist on initialing the "Steinmeier formula" text as a real political mechanism to ensure the enactment of a special status for the Donbass republics, discussing and reaching an agreement on the amendments to [Ukraine’s] special status law." Miroshnik noted that it would be possible to go over to discussing the amnesty model [for participants in the Donbass conflict] and constitutional amendments after that.

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