Opinions & Interviews

MINSK, 8 August (BelTA) – Leader of the Communist Party of Ukraine Piotr Simonenko has urged to sit down at the negotiating table to discuss and resolve the Ukrainian conflict. The Ukrainian politician made this statement as he spoke with reporters in Minsk on 8 August, BelTA has learnt.

“It is crucial to stop the war immediately, to withdraw troops and declare peace. All the stakeholders should sit down at the negotiating table and outline the issues that need to be resolved in order to settle the crisis,” Piotr Simonenko is convinced.

“One needs to sit down at the negotiating table with a clean conscience and with a clear understanding that the bloodshed should be stopped and specific tasks should be addressed,” the leader of the Communist Party of Ukraine said.

He emphasized that from the very beginning the Communist Party had been calling for a peaceful resolution of the conflict, but its clarion call was not heard. Among the suggestions of the Communist Party was holding a referendum in Ukraine where people could voice their views on where Ukraine should move – towards the European Union or the Customs Union of Belarus, Russia and Kazakhstan.

Piotr Simonenko deems it necessary to start investigating all the crimes that resulted in the loss of human life – in Maidan, in Odessa, in Krasnoarmeisk - and to fulfill Ukraine’s obligations to Europe.

“Ukraine undertook to formalize the decentralization of power in the country’s Constitution by the time the presidential election is held. However, Ukraine did not fulfill any of these commitments.

“From the very beginning Europe has insisted that it is not Ukraine’s domestic matter, but Russia’s aggression. However, this situation should be viewed, first of all, as a domestic conflict that causes deaths of civilian population,” he concluded.