LUHANSK. Jan 29 (Interfax) - Representatives from Ukraine and the self-proclaimed Luhansk and Donetsk people's republics (LPR and DPR, respectively) have agreed to exchange lists of captives for further verification, Olga Kobtseva, the LPR representative in the humanitarian subgroup of the Trilateral Contact Group on Donbas, said following a meeting in Minsk on Wednesday.
"Today's meeting of our working group was fairly constructive. We were able to discuss the prisoner exchange issue. The sides agreed to provide lists of prisoners for their further verification and confirmation," Kobtseva was quoted by the Luhansk information center as saying.
The subgroup also discussed opening new checkpoints in Donbas, she said.
"The sides expressed their mutual interest in resolving the problems hindering progress on this issue, and confirmed their intention to work more thoroughly on whatever issues arise in relation to the opening of checkpoints in Zolote and Schastya," Kobtseva said.
The DPR foreign ministry, in turn, said that when discussing humanitarian issues the TCG "reached an understanding that it is necessary to implement the 'procedural clearance first, swap later' principle for all subsequent exchanges."
"Because this principle was not implemented during previous exchanges, problems around the paperwork of the prisoners [already] exchanged remain unresolved," the ministry said on Telegram.