MOSCOW. Oct 14 (Interfax) - The leadership of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic sees areas of common interest in the bill on the special status of Donbas, but is not ready to discuss it in conditions of recurrent shelling attacks from the Ukrainian side.
"This bill has several points we could discuss. For instance, it gives Donbas the right to engage in foreign economic and foreign-policy activity, and it addresses restoration of what the Ukrainian military has destroyed in Donbas. Also, it does not call us 'terrorists,' but refers to us as a 'side'," the republic's first deputy prime minister, Andrei Purgin, told Interfax.
But he said that, "the reality and recurrent shelling attacks from the Ukrainian side, leave us no place for talks. It is difficult to say what will happen tomorrow," Purgin said.
He also expressed concern about the framework status of the bill.
"The law has a framework status and is filled with resolutions passed by the Cabinet and various agencies. In other words, the terms and rights laid down in these resolutions, may be easily recalled by another resolution," Purgin said.
"We have no guarantees that the initially provided rights wouldn't be taken away later, as was the case with Crimea, when it was given and then deprived of autonomy," he said.
The Verkhovna Rada announced on its website earlier that Speaker Oleksandr Turchynov had signed Bill No.55081 on the special local government status of individual districts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions and referred it to the president for signing.