Kyiv, June 20, 2014 – “Today Petro Poroshenko is announcing all his peace plan points. He will mention clear parameters for starting and realizing them, as well as how all the elements of it relate to one another,” Valeriy Chalyi, the Assistant Chief of the Presidential Administration, said during a press briefing at the Ukrainian Crisis Media Center. “The one thing that should be stressed again is that all elements of the plan to settle the armed conflict should work in parallel fashion and be implemented simultaneously. There can be no ceasefire without completely closing the border at its most dangerous parts. There has been a program planned for creating jobs and carrying out economic projects involving 1.5 billion dollars in investments once the situation in the region has been stabilized. These points are also included in the plan.”
Besides closing the borders and declaring a cease fire, another extremely important part of the plan is the President’s demands that hostages be freed. Valeriy Chalyi stressed that the Ukrainian state is seeking a peaceful resolution to the situation in the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts under any conditions, but it will not conduct peace talks with organizations that are holding hostages. “Freeing hostages is an unconditional demand,” claimed the Assistant Chief of the Administration of the President of Ukraine. “There are over one hundred hostages today that must be freed one way or another, because these are our citizens and representatives of international observation missions. And it is unacceptable to negotiate a peace plan if hostages remain in captivity.”
Responding to a question about future cooperation with the Russian Federation, Valeriy Chalyi again emphasized that restoring normal relations between Ukraine and Russia is possible only under one condition – ending the Russian Federation’s acts of military aggression. “Any talk about further steps aimed at restoring cooperation, especially at the level of inter-state commissions and institutional cooperation, can only take place after Russia repeals the Federation Council’s decision to send Russian Federation Armed Forces into Ukrainian territory,” said Valeriy Chalyi. “I think this must be the step after which we can talk about unfreezing institutional mechanisms. It will be extremely difficult to renew strategic cooperation. It continues to decline, and primarily because of actions on Russia’s part.”
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