The head of the Office of the President, Andrii Yermak, denies that at a meeting of foreign policy advisers to the leaders of the Normandy Format countries (Ukraine, Russia, Germany, France), the Ukrainian side undertook to revise the Verkhovna Rada's resolution on local elections in terms of their holding in Donbas.
He announced this on the air of the Ukraina TV channel on September 13, Ukrainian News Agency reports.
"There were no obligations from the Ukrainian side regarding the revision of the resolution of the Verkhovna Rada. This is impossible, because we cannot interfere in the activities of the Ukrainian parliament. We only informed our colleagues at the Normandy meeting that an MP from the Servant of the People registered the resolution on July 28 on amendments. This resolution exists today and it will soon be submitted to the session hall of the Verkhovna Rada, where its fate as a legal document will be decided," he said.
According to Yermak, an agreement was reached at the meeting that by the end of September, access to the uncontrolled territory of Donbas would be open to the International Committee of the Red Cross, the absence of which had previously hampered the exchange of detainees.
The head of the Office expects that specific dates for the exchange will begin to be discussed as early as this week.
At the moment, according to him, about 100 people are included in the exchange lists from each side.
As Ukrainian News Agency reported, earlier, following a meeting of Normandy Format advisers, deputy head of the Administration of the President of Russia Vladimir Putin, Dmitry Kozak, stated that an agreement had been reached that the Ukrainian parliament would revise the resolution on local elections in part of Donbas.
Earlier, Putin called the Verkhovna Rada's resolution on local elections contradicting the Minsk Agreements.
By this decree, elections are scheduled for October 25 in the territory controlled by Ukraine, and in the rest of Donbas territory are impossible until control of the border is transferred to Ukraine.
On August 9, at his first meeting in the Trilateral Contact Group on resolving the situation in Donbas, the head of the Ukrainian delegation, Leonid Kravchuk, informed the participants about sending an appeal to the Verkhovna Rada with a request to consider the issue of compliance with the Minsk Agreements of the resolution on the appointment of the next local elections in 2020.
Parliament has not yet considered this appeal.
Who we are: About us, Contacts. How we write news and our principles: Editorial code. We did our best. If you found this valuable – please support us.
To request a correction, please send an email.