Verkhovna Rada’s extension of the law on the peculiarities of local self-government in certain districts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions is needed so as to tackle Russia’s attempts “to get rid of sanctions,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin said.
“Russia thought that we would not have extended this law last year. This came as an extremely unpleasant surprise for it that the vote has taken place. In fact, Russia’s entire logic regarding the ways to get rid of sanctions was linked to that,” Klimkin told reporters on the sidelines of the Victor Pinchuk Foundation’s Yalta European Strategy (YES) Annual Meeting in Kyiv on Sept. 14.
Parliamentarians are focusing on the extension or non-extension of the law, the minister said.
“I believe that the decision on elections [in the certain districts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions outside the government’s control] is a complicating circumstance. This is more than a deliberate provocation. This is a decision made not by these fakes in Donetsk and Luhansk, but this [decision] has been made in Moscow. This modifies the entire logic we have speaking of both in the Normandy format and in other [formats],” Klimkin said.
“The law is only a reference,” the foreign minister said. “The extension of this law does not mean that the peculiarities of local self-government will be enforced one day so that Donbas would be liberated […] The occupied Donbas cannot gain any specifics of local self-government,” the foreign minister said.
As reported, the law on special system of local self-government in certain districts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions was approved in September 2014 and was enacted on Oct. 18, 2014, for three years.
On Oct. 6, 2017, the Verkhovna Rada has extended the law on the special mode of local self-government in certain districts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions by a year.
Ukraine will end up in an unfavorable situation if it does not extend the Donbas special status law, U.S. Special Representative for Ukraine Negotiations Kurt Volker said.
The Verkhovna Rada will make a decision as to whether or not to extend this law closer to the end of its term in effect in October, and it will depend on international partners’ stance on this issue, Parliament Speaker Andriy Parubiy said on August 4.
