Kiev Ready to Compromise in Development of Minsk Agreements' Roadmap

Ukrainian authorities are ready to compromise in developing the roadmap to implement the Minsk agreements, Deputy Head of Presidential Administration Konstantin Eliseev said Friday.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — On September 13, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that Russia offered to develop parallel roadmaps on ensuring security in Eastern Ukraine, so that the political settlement of the issue could keep pace with ensuring the full silence regime, a stance Kiev disagreed with. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin proposed instead that an agreed unified roadmap to implement the Minsk deal was necessary.

“We have, of course, our vision of a road map and we actively try to advance our interests. Indeed, all partners have their own vision [of a roadmap], so we will be looking for compromise. Under no circumstances are we talking about concessions to be made on issues related to sovereignty and territorial integrity of [the Ukrainian] state,” Eliseev said.

Kiev launched a special military operation in Ukraine’s southeast (Donbas) in April 2014, after local residents refused to recognize the new Ukrainian authorities, which came to power as a result of a coup.

In February 2015, a peace agreement was signed between Ukraine’s conflicting sides in the Belarusian capital of Minsk, after talks of the Normandy Four countries, comprising Russia, Ukraine, France and Germany.

The deal stipulates a full ceasefire, weapons withdrawal from the line of contact in eastern Ukraine, an all-for-all prisoner exchange and constitutional reforms, which would give a special status to the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk people’s republics.