DVORIKI (Sputnik) — Ukrainian authorities are not fulfilling their obligationы to urgently conduct a constitutional reform in the country, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Monday.
"There was a meeting in Geneva in April 2014, where we adopted a statement outlining the need to immediately begin a national dialogue, with the participation of all regions and political forces in Ukraine, on implementing a constitutional reform… It has been a year and a half, and Ukraine's commitment to immediately launch a constitutional reform has not changed. No reform is being carried out," Lavrov said at the Terra Scientia International Youth Forum.
Evoking the April 17, 2014, Geneva Statement on Ukraine adopted after four-way talks between Russia, the United States, the European Union and Ukraine, Lavrov said Kiev has yet to undertake the outlined national dialogue and constitutional reforms.
In late July, the Ukrainian constitutional court declared President Petro Poroshenko’s draft bill on decentralizing power in accordance with the country’s highest law. Kiev expects its legislature, the Verkhovna Rada, to debate the bill in late August and adopt a final version in the fall.
The February Minsk deal requires Ukraine to conduct constitutional reforms and hold local elections in Donetsk and Lugansk regions by the end of 2015, among other provisions.
