You're reading: UDAR, Svoboda parliamentary factions oppose talks between goverenment, self-proclaimed republics

The parliamentary factions of the UDAR and Svoboda parties at the Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada categorically oppose negotiations between Ukrainian officials and the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) and Luhansk People's Republic (LPR).

It was reported earlier that the demands that DPR and LPR planned to
put forward at a meeting of the contact group for Ukraine in Minsk on
Sept. 1 included the appointment of a Ukrainian presidential and
government official for negotiating with representatives of the
self-proclaimed republics.

“I haven’t seen this statement. We don’t cooperate with terrorist
organizations,” Iryna Heraschenko, a member of the UDAR party and
presidential envoy for settling the situation in Donbas, said when asked
whether a Ukrainian government official could be engaged in direct
consultations with the DPR and LPR.

Oleh Tiahnybok, the leader of the Svoboda faction, said at a news
conference in Kyiv on Sept. 2, “I would like to warn the president and
the diplomatic corps against holding negotiations or sitting at the
negotiating table with representatives of the so-called DPR and LPR.” He
argued that this could be interpreted as the legal recognition of these
organizations.

Rada Deputy Chairman Ruslan Koshulynsky of the Svoboda faction said
when asked whether a Ukrainian presidential and government official
could take part in consultations with DPR and LPR representatives that
this was impossible.