KYIV. June 7 (Interfax) - The negotiating process in Minsk on settling the conflict in Donbas has failed to resolve Ukraine's problems and is creating a frozen conflict, Ukrainian Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said.
"The Minsk process has played its role, and it is dead now. In its current shape, the Minsk process cannot resolve Ukraine's problems in any way. This is a situation of a protracted and frozen conflict," Avakov said at the National Expert Forum in Kyiv on Thursday.
Ukraine's negotiating position should be based on a public discussion supported by all of society, he said.
Recovering the Donbas territory not controlled by Kyiv will not be an easy process, nor will it be done through a military operation, Avakov said. This process will include several components, among them communicational and informational ones, and "technically, this is likely to be a police operation without the involvement of military forces," he said.
"Ukrainian society and all of us understand clearly that the occupied Donbas is Ukraine and the people living there are Ukrainians, and we should focus on this rather than fence ourselves off," he said.
"The Donbas de-occupation process" will require legislative pardoning, but that cannot be applied to people who have fought against the Ukrainian military and committed crimes against civilians, he said.
"In my view, it's necessary to pass legislation under which there can be no pardon for people who have the blood of civilians on their hands or those who have fought against Ukrainian troops, who have killed and shot. There can be no pardon for those who were involved in robberies and crimes against civilians and the military," Avakov said, adding that Ukrainian society should have a discussion as to who might be eligible for amnesty.
Avakov earlier suggested passing legislation on collaborationism, which would regulate the prosecution of members of illegal armed groups in the process of "the de-occupation of certain districts in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions." He said this legislation should be passed before those areas begin to be liberated.