Paris to Check if Ukraine’s Special Status Bill Violates Minsk Deal

PARIS (Sputnik) – French officials are studying Ukraine’s bill on a special administrative status for contested eastern Ukrainian regions to determine whether they violate the Minsk reconciliation agreement, a French Foreign Ministry spokesman said Wednesday.

“The Minsk agreements state that decentralization and institutional changes are needed to give greater autonomy to territories in eastern Ukraine,” Romain Nadal said.

“In this context, we have been studying three bills and a [parliamentary] resolution concerning the territories in eastern Ukraine,” he said.

On Tuesday, the Ukrainian parliament decided to postpone giving special status to Ukraine's breakaway Donetsk and Luhansk regions until elections were held in Donbas under Ukrainian law, and declared parts of the regions "occupied" territories.

Earlier on Wednesday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that the Ukrainian parliament's decisions regarding the special status for Donbas constitute a gross violation of the peace agreements reached in Minsk. Lavrov said he contacted his counterparts in Germany and France regarding the matter and urged them to influence Ukrainian authorities to fulfill the Minsk deal.

Both Donetsk and Luhansk people's republics said that by making unilateral decisions on the status of Donbas regions, Ukrainian authorities have shown that they are unwilling to stick to the previously reached agreements. Donbas authorities said there can be no compromises with Kiev until the measure is lifted.

Granting special status to Ukraine's southeast regions of Donetsk and Luhansk was one of the key points of the deal signed by both Kiev authorities and independent supporters in Minsk in February.