UNITED NATIONS, January 26. /TASS/. Kiev is seeking to dodge direct dialogue with Donetsk and Lugansk, which is necessary to settle the conflict in Ukraine, Russian Permanent Representative at the United Nations Vitaly Churkin said on Monday.
The Russian diplomat accused the Kiev authorities of stonewalling on another meeting of the Contact Group in Minsk by laying down demands on the level of representation on the part of the Donetsk and Lugansk self-defence forces.
“Kiev’s ‘party of war’ in the first place needs no peace in Donbass,” Churkin said. “Official Kiev is sabotaging another meeting of the Contact Group in Minsk laying ungrounded claims to the level of representation of (Donbass) militias. The most important thing now is to hold this meetin but not to argue about the level of representation.”
“Actual results can be achieved solely through Kiev’s direct dialogue with Donetsk and Lugansk, but the Ukrainian authorities are seeking to avoid such dialogue having embarked on a path of suppressing the southeast by force,” he said at a meeting of the United Nations Security Council.
“No national reconciliation in Ukraine, no lasting settlement in its southeastern regions is possible without an inclusive direct political dialogue that is to discuss parameters of the constitutional reform, as is provided in the Geneva communiqu and the Minsk agreements,” he noted.
Last week, the Russian ambassador to the United Nations said that the meeting of the Contact Group scheduled for January 16 had been frustrated as no Kiev representatives had showed up.