On September 20, a Minsk platform meeting took place at the Parliament, chaired by Iryna Herashchenko, the First Deputy Chairperson of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, a representative in the TCG’s humanitarian subgroup. The event was also attended by Pavlo Klimkin, the foreign minister of Ukraine.
The participants of the meeting discussed the pressing issues of the Minsk process and the Normandy format, and dwelt at length upon the issue of extending the law of Ukraine "On special procedure of local self-governance in certain districts of the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts".
The participants stated that despite its fair adoption, the law could not be implemented due to Russia's failure to fulfill its security obligations - including the withdrawal of all illegal armed groups, military equipment, militants and hired guns from Ukraine’s territory. At the same time, it was underscored that extension of the said law is also necessary in order to up the sanctions pressure over Russia and to support measures for a peaceful settlement of the situation in the Donbas.
The foreign minister P.Klimkin informed about the measures for making heavier the burden of sanctions upon the Russian Federation for non-fulfillment of its Minsk agreements obligations and violation of the human rights in the temporarily occupied Crimea by the occupation administrations of the Russian Federation. The minister also underlined that under the ongoing occupation there can be no question of elections in the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts.
The conferees also deliberated the security situation over the Sea of Azov, the need to counteract the implementation of the Russian political project "Nord Stream-2" and the prospects for deploying a UN peacekeeping mission in the Donbas.
P.Klimkin also clued up parliamentarians that at the next week meeting of the UN General Assembly in New York, the President would broach the points of the peacekeeping mission, the security situation in the Donbas, and the release of hostages. He then laboured in addition the point of the steps the authorities are out to undertake towards issuing Hungarian passports for Ukrainian citizen in Berehovo.