This is the last article you can read this month
You can read more article this month
You can read more articles this month
Sorry your limit is up for this month
Reset on:
Please help support the Morning Star by subscribing here
THE right-wing Kiev government launched talks on decentralising power today as part of a European-backed peace plan but did not invite its main pro-Russian foes.
It extended no invitation to activists who won independence referendums in the east, a deliberate oversight that left it unclear what point there was to the negotiations.
In his opening remarks, acting president Oleksandr Turchynov clamed that Kiev was “ready for a dialogue” but insisted the government would not talk to separatists who have seized buildings and fought government troops across eastern Ukraine.
Mr Turchynov chaired the first in a series of round tables with spiritual leaders, MPs, government figures and regional officials as part of a peace plan drafted by the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE).
“Let’s have a dialogue, let’s discuss specific proposals,” Mr Turchynov said, “But those armed people who are trying to wage a war on their own country, those who are with arms in their hands trying to dictate their will, or rather the will of another country, we will use legal procedures against them. They will face justice.”
Mr Turchynov's attitude left it unclear how such “talks” would advance the OSCE road map, which aims to halt fighting between regime forces and separatists in the east and de-escalate tensions ahead of Ukraine’s May 25 presidential vote.
He also said the government would not stop its offensive to retake eastern cities now under the control of activists who declared independence on Monday in the Luhansk and Donetsk regions.
Pro-Russian activists in the east shrugged off the round table talks as meaningless.
“We haven’t received any offers to join a round table and dialogue,” said Donetsk leader Denis Pushilin.
“If the authorities in Kiev want a dialogue, they must come here.
“If we go to Kiev, they will arrest us.”
“The government in Kiev does not want to listen to the people of Donetsk,” said Denis Patkovski, a member of an anti-fascist militia in the city of Sloviansk. “They just come here with their guns.”
