{"id":41041,"date":"2019-10-02T07:22:21","date_gmt":"2019-10-02T07:22:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=41041"},"modified":"2019-10-02T07:22:21","modified_gmt":"2019-10-02T07:22:21","slug":"ukraine-agrees-to-election-in-separatist-controlled-east","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=41041","title":{"rendered":"Ukraine agrees to election in separatist-controlled east"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Ukraine on Tuesday signed much-anticipated accords with separatists from the country\u2019s east, Russia and European monitors that agree local elections can be held in separatist-controlled territory, paving the way for peace talks with Moscow.<\/p>\n

The signing at a meeting in the Belarusian capital of Minsk was largely seen as the new Ukrainian government taking a major step towards resolving the prolonged armed conflict in eastern Ukraine that has killed more than 13,000 people and displaced more than one million since 2014.<\/p>\n

Ukrainian nationalists protested against the move, with hundreds gathering on Kiev\u2019s Maidan, the square that symbolises Ukraine\u2019s resistance to Russian influence.<\/p>\n

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Russia and Ukraine exchange prisoners in move to improve ties<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said at a briefing in Kiev that the country agreed to a snap local election in the east, which has been controlled by Russia-backed separatists since April 2014.<\/p>\n

He sought to dispel fears about excessive concessions to the separatists, saying the election would be held only when Ukraine regains control of all its borders with Russia.<\/p>\n

“There won\u2019t be any elections under the barrel of a gun,” Zelenskiy said in response to criticism that his administration bowed to Russia\u2019s demands.<\/p>\n

“There won\u2019t be any elections there if the troops are still there.”<\/p>\n

Separatist leaders and the Ukrainian government also pledged to pull back troops from two locations in the Donetsk and the Luhansk regions early next week.<\/p>\n

Zelenskiy insisted the local election would be held according to Ukrainian law, meaning all candidates and political parties should be allowed to run.<\/p>\n

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Zelenskiy insisted the local election would be held according to Ukrainian law, meaning all candidates and political parties should be allowed to run [<\/span>Valentyn Ogirenko\/Reuters]<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Separatist leaders have rejected that idea in the past, saying they would not allow Ukrainian parties that included nationalist politicians to contest.<\/p>\n

Putin-Zelenskiy summit<\/h2>\n

Both the separatists and Ukraine agreed the election will be considered valid as long as monitors from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe determine they are free and fair, Zelenskiy said.<\/p>\n

The Kremlin has denied providing military or financial support to the separatists, despite overwhelming evidence.<\/p>\n

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Volodymyr Zelensky sworn in as Ukraine’s sixth president<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n

Russian troops were spotted in eastern Ukraine during crucial offensives, and the rebels themselves make no secret of the weapons and training they’ve received from the Russian military.<\/p>\n

Moscow has tried to play down its involvement in eastern Ukraine in recent years, pulling back its troops and mostly relying on proxy forces.<\/p>\n

The separatists, in the meantime, have re-branded their fighters as police or other law enforcement officers.<\/p>\n

The election agreement was seen as the final hurdle before a summit between Zelenskiy, Russian President Vladimir Putin and the leaders of France and Germany, who have helped mediate the peace talks.<\/p>\n

French President Emmanuel Macron said earlier on Tuesday that he expects the summit in the coming weeks.<\/p>\n

Russia previously declined to sit down with Ukraine unless it signed an agreement on holding a local election.<\/p>\n

Former Ukrainian officials and lawmakers who were voted out of office earlier this year following a landslide victory by Zelenskiy and his allies expressed concern on Tuesday that Kiev was giving up its sovereignty over the east by signing the accords.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ukraine on Tuesday signed much-anticipated accords with separatists from the country\u2019s east, Russia and European monitors that agree local elections can be held in separatist-controlled territory, paving the way for peace talks with Moscow. The signing at a meeting in the Belarusian capital of Minsk was largely seen as the new Ukrainian government taking a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":41042,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41041","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41041","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=41041"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41041\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/41042"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=41041"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=41041"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=41041"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}