Events

MINSK, 5 September (BelTA) – Participants of the talks held in Minsk on 5 September to settle the Ukrainian crisis will create a working group by 8 September, BelTA learned from Ukraine ex-president Leonid Kuchma.

“A working group on both sides will be set up by Monday. The group will have to take the process to the resolution of every problem. You must understand that there are more than enough problems. There are also political problems. I mean the self-government of these regions, the transition of authority of the regions. All these matters are covered by our today’s documents,” said Leonid Kuchma.

In turn, Ambassador of Russia to Ukraine Mikhail Zurabov said he hopes that the ceasefire accord will be permanent. He added that one of the problems they had been working for the last week was concerns that once again a ceasefire would be announced but due to various reasons it would not be enforced. “Therefore, the first and most important document that has been signed is the protocol that specifies a certain sequence of steps. No doubt the immediate cessation of fire is the first item. The ceasefire has to be implemented as of 18:00 Kyiv time,” he said.

The other 11 items of the protocol virtually shape the configuration of political arrangements. According to the Ambassador, these items give an answer why the military standoff will not happen again if the arrangements are to be implemented. The Ambassador added: “Since it is rather difficult to enforce ceasefire technically — all of us understand that there is a huge amount of heavy weapons and a high level of mistrust — special infrastructure to control and verify the observance of the ceasefire regime will be created”.

In his words, these steps should be reflected by the memorandum on the ceasefire regime. The document was discussed at the meeting on 5 September. “There are two versions: the one prepared by the Ukrainian side and by our partners in the negotiations. These memorandums have a lot in common, which gives reasons to believe there will be no insurmountable contradictions. There was an agreement to set up a group of experts within the next three days to work out the memorandum in detail and come up with a common solution,” said Mikhail Zurabov. After that the basic document will be discussed through a video conference. Later on it will be approved by Kyiv as well as the people’s republics of Lugansk and Donetsk.