Interfax: “Russia: Lavrov takes issue with Ukrainian objections to federalization, language”

(Interfax – Moscow, March 30, 2014) Acting Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Deshchytsya, during a meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov [earlier] in the week, said that the idea of Ukraine’s ??federalization and giving Russian the status of a second state language was unacceptable.

“Deshchytsya said that our proposal is unacceptable because federalization is contrary to the fundamental principles of Ukraine’s state order. It is unclear why. I know of no such principles. Second, the idea to make Russian the second official language is also unacceptable,” Lavrov said in an interview on “Voskresnoye Vremya” [state-controlled Russian Channel One TV; to be broadcast later in the day].

Lavrov and Deshchytsya met in The Hague last Monday [24 March].

“We can conclude that if the current leaders in Kiev persist in their rejection of the idea of ??delegating authority to the regions (and we are convinced that the only way to do it effectively is through federalization), if they continue to ignore the Russians, including the Russian language, then, I think, the constitutional reform that in some form has it seems begun, will produce nothing sensible,” Lavrov said.

“I asked him to clarify what sort of reform has begun in the Verkhovna Rada [Supreme Council, Ukraine’s parliament]. Deshchytsya said that a special commission has been formed to deal with a ‘cleanup of the 2004 constitution currently in force in Ukraine’. It seems to me that one cannot get away with cosmetic refinements. With that, we parted,” Sergey Lavrov underlined.