MOSCOW, May 19 (RIA Novosti) – The self-proclaimed people’s republic of Donetsk will not negotiate with the current Kiev authorities as they have not fulfilled their obligations under existing agreements, people’s governor Pavel Gubarev said Monday.
“We believe that in this configuration, government talks with the foreign state of Ukraine are impossible as these people have been conducting a terrorist operation against their people and we have made several attempts to reach an agreement with them before,” Gubarev said in an interview with the Rossiya 24 TV channel.
At a meeting in Geneva on April 17, top diplomats from Russia, Ukraine, the EU and the US agreed on a number of conditions that urged the coup-imposed regime and its opposition in Ukraine to refrain from violence, extremism and provocations, to disarm militants and launch a national dialogue on constitutional reform. Despite the deal, acting Ukrainian President Oleksandr Turchynov launched a special operation in mid-April to crack down on pro-federalization protests.
Russia has called the Western-backed military operation against the protesters a “punitive act,” and accused Ukraine’s authorities of waging a war against their own people.
“For a dialogue to start, the Kiev junta should leave and a government of adequate and sane people should be formed, with whom we can sit down at the negotiating table, agree without fearing that the conditions of the deals will be broken,” Gubarev said.
The self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk people’s republics in eastern Ukraine held referendums on self-determination on May 11 with over 90 percent of voters supporting greater autonomy.
Both republics declared themselves sovereign states last Monday, with Donetsk planning to ask Moscow to join Russia. The Luhansk leadership also said it did not rule out the possibility of a referendum on becoming part of Russia. Both republics have begun establishing government agencies and forming military units.
