MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 03rd December, 2020) The boycott by some UN Security Council's members of a meeting devoted to the situation in eastern Ukraine, involving representatives of breakaway republics in the Donbas region, means that the West is completely disinterested in reaching settlement of the conflict, Leonid Slutsky, the head of the Russian lower house's International Affairs Committee, told reporters on Thursday.
On Russia's initiative, the UN Security Council on Wednesday held an informal "Arria-Formula" meeting dedicated to the implementation of the Minsk agreements. "Arria-Formula" is a format of informal meetings to allow Security Council members to have a frank and private exchange of views, within a flexible procedural framework and with the participation of invited parties, whose opinion would be of interest.
Vladislav Deinego, the foreign minister of the self-proclaimed Luhansk People's Republic (LPR) and the representative of the breakaway Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) in the Contact Group, DPR Foreign Minister Natalya Nikonorova were invited to take part in the online event. A number of Western members of the Security Council, including France and Germany that participate in the so-called Normandy format dialogue, as well as the United States, the United Kingdom, Belgium and Estonia, boycotted the meeting. Germany and France also succeeded in objecting to the broadcasting on the UN website of the informal meeting.
"The demarche of a number of countries in the UN Security Council, primarily the United States, France, the United Kingdom, where the Ukrainian issue was discussed using the 'Arria Formula' with the participation of representatives of the LPR and DPR, demonstrates the notorious double standard approach and West's complete disinterest in a real settlement in Donbas," Slutsky said.
According to the lawmaker, neither Kiev nor its Western "curators" need peace in Donbas since it is beneficial for them to maintain a hotbed of tension near the Russian border, and thus to justify any geopolitical provocations.
The conflict in eastern Ukraine began in 2014 when the country's military launched an offensive against Donbas after Donetsk and Luhansk regions proclaimed independence from Kiev. The two provinces said they were acting in response to what they considered to be a coup in the Ukrainian capital that toppled the old government in February of that year.
In February 2015, leaders of the so-called Normandy Four � Russia, Ukraine, France and Germany � held talks in Minsk that resulted in adopting agreements aimed at halting the war in Donbas and a long-term political settlement of the conflict. During a Normandy Format summit in late 2019, all sides agreed that the Minsk agreements should remain the basis for the resolution of the crisis.
