Ukraine’s representative in the Trilateral Contact Group (TCG), the second president of Ukraine, Leonid Kuchma, reiterates the inadmissibility of election in the separatist-held Donbas and positively assesses the position of Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel that Russia must return the Ukrainian border to restore peace in Ukraine.
“I express gratitude to Mrs. Merkel, who at the meeting with Putin said […] that it is necessary to turn back the (Ukrainian) border to restore peace in Ukraine,” Kuchma told the students of the Nizhyn Gogol State University on May 5.
Later, when answering journalists’ question about the future of the Normandy format taking into account the election in France and Germany, he said: “We must look at ourselves from the outside, how we look from the outside. We hope that someone will come and decide our problem. We need to make Ukraine ourselves, Ukraine about which we are all talking about, but we do not do much in this respect. I like the position of German Chancellor Merkel. She is consistent in her views on the implementation of the Minsk agreements.”
Kuchma positively assessed the recent statement of Merkel that “Mr. President of the Russian Federation should return control of the border before talking about political reform, to ensure peace in this territory first of all.” “I like it – she said it from the bottom of her heart,” he said.
Speaking about the possibility of holding election in Donbas, the representative of Ukraine in the TCG said: “This is absolutely unacceptable for us. No election in the occupied territory, because the power will not belong to us then, but to our neighbors, especially the military contingent, which approximately numbers 40,000 people.”
As reported, on May 2, Merkel, after talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin, said that there is no need to conclude a new agreement within the framework of a peaceful settlement in Ukraine. She also said: “Of course we want to make sure Ukraine gets access to its national border, which is also part of the Minsk Agreements, before securing a political resolution aimed at conducting local elections.”
