Arestovych: head of Ukrainian delegation to TCG thinking about new adviser for relations with ORDLO
Head of the Ukrainian delegation to the Trilateral Contact Group (TCG) Leonid Kravchuk proposed to include in the delegation a new adviser for relations with representatives of certain districts of Donetsk and Luhansk regions (ORDLO) to process their proposals regarding the conduct of local elections and the special status of the occupied territories, TCG spokesperson Oleksiy Arestovych said.
"According to 'Set of Measures for Implementation of Minsk Agreements' dated February 12, 2015, consultation with representatives of the temporarily occupied ORDLO on self-government and local elections is envisaged. Since these issues are extremely sensitive and there is a need to take into account many nuances of a political settlement, Leonid Makarovych proposed the position of a special adviser to make it easier to navigate the mass of proposals, plans, roadmaps and settlement clusters that come both from Ukrainian public experts in the TCG and from ORDLO," Arestovych told Interfax-Ukraine.
According to him, "such an adviser could, if necessary, interview experts from both sides, process proposals regarding a political settlement, divide them 'by tables' and submit them for study to the head of the Ukrainian delegation in the TCG."
The TCG spokesperson said that if Kravchuk finally makes a decision to introduce the position of a special adviser, he "will work on a general civil basis, like the other six already present advisers in the Ukrainian delegation to the TCG on economic issues, information support, humanitarian aspects, and others."
At the same time, Arestovych said that "representatives of ORDLO took Leonid Kravchuk's plan extremely negatively."
"ORDLO decided that they were being forced out of the process. Leonid Kravchuk tried for two hours to explain that this is an internal decision of the Ukrainian delegation, this is not an issue for discussion in the TCG, which does not require either the approval of ODRLO, the OSCE or Russia, does not require a change in format. This is taking into account that Leonid Makarovych is just thinking about such a special adviser," the TCG spokesperson said.
