LUHANSK. Dec 5 (Interfax) - The self-proclaimed Luhansk People's Republic (LPR) sees Ukraine's proposals to replace the Donbas representatives at the Minsk talks as Kyiv's refusal from the Minsk agreements.
"The attempts by Kyiv to select convenient TCG negotiators from Donbas is yet another absurd idea which amounts to refusal to implement the Minsk agreements," LPR foreign minister Vladislav Deinego said in a statement released on Thursday.
"The question of peace in Donbas is a matter for the conflicting sides, and it is only in dialogue with the real representatives from the Donbas republic that one expect progress in peaceful settlement of the conflict. And it is only these republics' representatives who have the powers and the mechanisms to implement the agreements negotiated by the Contact Group, as they have repeatedly proved in practice."
The official Kyiv, which has so far proved unable to honor its obligations, "continues to manipulate the issues of the Minsk agreements, right up to a point of rejecting its obligations or replacing 'inconvenient negotiators'," Deinego said.
"All these attempts to distort the essence of the Minsk negotiating platform are the same lie as saying that only a million and a half people have remained in Donbas. Around a million and a half are living in the Luhansk people's republic alone, and about a million more in the Donetsk one," he said.