MOSCOW, July 28 (RIA Novosti) - The West is not trying to make Kiev fulfill its obligations, including the beginning of dialogue with the country’s independence supporters, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Monday.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, elected in May, announced a peace plan that suggested a number of concessions to federalist supporters and dialogue with the self-defense forces. However, after Kiev signed an association agreement with the European Union, the ceasefire in eastern Ukraine was called off and no negotiations have been held since.
“The promised to begin, I'll remind you, an inclusive, constitutional process with the participation of all regions that would be open and transparent,” Lavrov said.
“Instead, they created some sort of sidelines commission in the Vekhovna Rada [Ukraine’s parliament] and it signed some sort of project on the Constitution, which they didn’t show anyone, there was not nationwide discussion, and as Kiev promised, no [dialogue] was begun,” Lavrov said.
“The [nationwide] dialogue was defined as an essential condition in the April 17 Geneva Accords, repeatedly referred to by the new Ukrainian authorities and [President Petro] Poroshenko personally, none of it has been implemented,” the minister stated.
“And none of the Western partners of those who testified at the signing of the agreement dated February 21, none of those who wrote up the April 17 Geneva Accords, no one is even trying to urge the Ukrainian leadership to fulfill what was promised – above all, to start a nationwide dialogue about the kind of state where all these people, all these regions will be able to live in peace and stability,” Lavrov concluded.
The conflict in Ukraine broke out after a February ouster of then President Viktor Yanukovych, following which southeastern regions of the country refused to recognize the legitimacy of Kiev’s new authorities. In mid-April, Kiev launched a special operation to suppress the militia in the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk people’s republics, and the two sides have been in conflict ever since.
Kiev has entered multiple negotiations formats on crisis resolution in the country, but none of the concluded agreements have been fulfilled. Moscow has repeatedly called on both sides of the conflict to end the bloodshed and meet for discussions on the issue at the negotiation table.
