RIA Novosti: Ukraine’s Luhansk, Donetsk rebel leaders emphasize political process

(RIA Novosti – September 5, 2014) Minsk, 5 September: In addition to the OSCE, the leaders of Ukraine and Russia, who initiated the peace process, are the guarantors of the Minsk accords, the prime minister of the self-proclaimed Luhansk republic, Igor Plotnitskiy [Ihor Plotnytskyy], has said.

As part of the Friday [5 September] meeting in Minsk of the trilateral contact group (Russia-Ukraine-OSCE) on the settlement of the Ukrainian crisis, the Kiev authorities and the self-proclaimed republics agreed to a truce. The agreements reached largely coincide with the points of the settlement plan proposed by the president of Russia on Wednesday. The Ukrainian president has said that the agreement is based on his own peace plan.

“I want to say regarding guarantors that the guarantors were those who initiated this. It is Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, Petr [Petro] Alekseyevich [Oleksiyovych] Poroshenko as well as the OSCE, which is also a guarantor,” Plotnitskiy said.

The agreement of the militia [pro-Russia rebels], who are pursuing a successful offensive, to cease fire will be the guarantee that the accords will be implemented, the prime minister of the self-proclaimed Donetsk republic, Aleksandr [Oleksandr] Zakharchenko, has said.

“With regard to a cease-fire and guarantees, I want to say that as you know, we have active offensive operations in both the people’s republic of Donetsk and the people’s republic of Luhansk, so the most important guarantee is that together with (ex-President of Ukraine) Leonid Kuchma, the OSCE, the Russian Federation, we are now consciously stopping the operation. What other guarantees [are needed],” Zakharchenko said.

The first step has been taken and now it is important to pursue a political process, he added. “We have managed to take the first step, and everything that is still to be done is now not so important in terms of the delineation [Russian: “oboznacheniye”] of independence and sovereignty as saving lives and trying to stop the military operation… [ellipsis as published] Now it is important to move to a political process, and tell wives and mothers that their sons and husbands can return home,” Zakharchenko said.