KIEV: Ukraine is delaying the implementation of Minsk peace agreements, Ukrainian president’s Envoy for humanitarian issues at the Trilateral Contact Group on Ukraine Viktor Medvedchuk said Saturday.
The deal stipulates a full ceasefire, weapons withdrawal from the line of contact in eastern Ukraine, an all-for-all prisoner exchange and constitutional reforms, which would give a special status to the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk people’s republics. Both sides of the conflict, however, are constantly accusing each other of violations of the agreement.
“On the one hand, all capitals from Moscow to Washington admit that the Minsk agreements have no alternative; on the other hand, each party is looking for arguments, motives to delay or not to implement these agreements. First of all, we talk about Ukraine,” Medvedchuk said at the Vesti v Subbotu TV program.
In April 2014, Kiev authorities launched a military operation against pro-independence militia in Donbas. In February 2015, the two sides reached a ceasefire deal after talks brokered by the leaders of Russia, France, Germany and Ukraine — the so-called Normandy Format — in the Belarusian capital of Minsk.
