MOSCOW, September 15. /ITAR-TASS/. The self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) is waiting for Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko’s law on the status of Donbass, a DPR senior official said on Monday.

“We are waiting for the draft law and will study it. We hope for a peaceful settlement,” Andrei Purgin, who is DPR First Deputy Prime Minister, said.

Poroshenko earlier on Monday proposed a special self-rule status for the independence-seeking Donetsk and Luhansk regions and the free use of the Russian language there.

The draft law he submitted to the parliament calls for local elections in the region, commonly known as Donbass, on November 9, 2014.

It guarantees the use of the Russian or any other language “in public and private life, the study and support of the Russian or any other language, its free development and equal status”, the newspaper Ukrainska Pravda quoted the draft law as saying.

The special status will be granted for a limited period of three years, during which time Kiev is hoping to carry out its decentralisation plans and adopt appropriate amendments to the constitution.

Poroshenko said a special status for certain parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions was a key element of his peace plan.

“De facto they are elements of decentralisation with full and unconditional respect for the sovereignty, territorial integrity and independence of our state,” Poroshenko said, adding that the state would retain all principal attributes of power such as foreign policy and law.

Kiev will also guarantee that the persons who participated in the fighting in the Donetsk and Lugansk regions would not be prosecuted.