MOSCOW, March 13. /TASS/. Moscow expects Ukraine to determine a list of regions in the country’s east to be granted special political and economic status by Saturday’s deadline and to start a dialogue on holding local elections, Russia's envoy to the European security watchdog OSCE said on Friday, noting that instead, Ukraine’s parliament wanted to give up cooperation with representatives of eastern republics.
"According to point 4 of the Complex of Measures for Fulfilment of the Minsk agreements, Ukraine's Verkhovna Rada should adopt by March 14 a regulation determining a list of Donbas regions with special political and economic status. We hope it will be adopted by the deadline," said Russia's OSCE envoy, Andrey Kelin.
Kelin noted that Moscow was looking forward to "a swift start of a dialogue on ways of conducting local elections [in the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics] in accordance with Ukrainian legislation and the law of Ukraine ‘On interim local self-government in certain areas of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions’, as well as on the future administration of these areas based on this law, as stipulated in the Minsk agreement".
"Instead, the Verkhovna Rada has adopted a statement that it will not cooperate with representatives of the self-proclaimed republics while organising local elections," Kelin said, adding that under the terms of the peace deal, agreed in Belarus on February 12, parties were bound to cooperate.