Tsymbaliuk: Russia blocks work in Trilateral Contact Group on many tracks

The work of the Trilateral Contact Group is currently blocked on many tracks due to Russia's stance.

"The work of the Trilateral Contact Group appears to be blocked on many tracks," Yevhenii Tsymbaliuk, Permanent Representative of Ukraine to the International Organizations in Vienna, said at the OSCE Permanent Council on 17 September, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.

He noted that Russia had been refusing to discuss political aspects of conflict settlement, including the tasks set by the Normandy Four leaders at the summit of 9 December 2019, for more than a month now.

“The proposals of the Ukrainian side relating, in particular, to amendments to the law on the special order of local self-government in certain areas of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Ukraine, implementation of the so-called “Steinmeier formula” in the Ukrainian legislation, amnesty, etc. are simply ignored and the Political Working Group is unable to proceed with its agenda. All efforts of the OSCE moderator, Ambassador Morel, his appeals and practical steps to resuscitate normal activates of the Group have met outright obstruction. This is simply unacceptable,” Tsymbaliuk said.

As noted, “deliberate efforts by the Russian side to obstruct and delay the application of the already agreed arrangements within TCG” are also seen in the security and humanitarian areas. In particular, the Ukrainian diplomat reminded of the updated mine action plan in the 19 agreed areas, which has a clear humanitarian nature, disengagement of forces and hardware in four additional agreed areas, and mutual exchange of lists of identified prisoners of war and other conflict-related detainees.

“For the immediate future, we see demining and disengagement of troops and hardware as critical priorities – if these measures are not implemented before the winter weather sets, time will be lost for quite a long period. As for the exchange of lists, the Russian side has missed the 10 July deadline many times already, and announced that it has no intention to finalize its part of the deal, referring to purely political – I would say politisized – justifications,” Ukraine’s Permanent Representative to the International Organizations in Vienna stressed.

Ukraine has duly implemented and is continuing to implement its part of the Minsk agreements as well as other commitments undertaken within the Minsk and Normandy formats, the diplomat reiterated.

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