Russia proposes conditions for acceptance

THE Russian Embassy in Georgetown said Monday that the creation of a Contract Support Group for Ukraine with members of the United States of America and Europe must be acceptable to all political forces in Ukraine.A statement, on behalf of the Russian Federation Ministry of Foreign Affairs said:“Russia is ready, together with our partners, without delay to commence construction of the multilateral mechanism of facilitating settlement of the Ukrainian crisis according to these proposals.
“…Russia has previously explained that the current situation in Ukraine was not created by us and is a result of a deep crisis of the Ukraine State and that led to the polarisation of the society and deep intensification of antagonism among various parts of the country.
“It is to facilitate overcoming these contradictions that the international community should focus on.
“Based on this task and taking into account appeals to us from the USA and European countries, we prepared and handed over, a week ago, to our major partners in the USA, Europe and other regions, Russian proposals on how external facilitation could be provided to the Ukrainians for themselves to take steps to come out of the crisis.”
Following principles
It continued that the members of the Contract Support Group for Ukraine “would be” obligated to be guided by the following principles:
* Respect of interests of the multi-ethnic people of Ukraine;
* Support of legitimate aspirations of all Ukrainians and all regions of Ukraine to live in security according to their traditions and customs, to use freely their native language, to have free access to their culture and maintain ties with their compatriots and neighbours;
* Unacceptability of revival of Neo-Nazi ideology, the Ukrainian politicians should dissociate themselves from ultra-nationalists and prevent their attempts to destabilise various regions of the country; and
* Recognition of importance of civil peace and nation-wide accord in Ukraine for furthering constructive relationship in the Euro-Atlantic region on the principles of equal rights and mutual respect of interests of all countries in the region.
The statement also stressed that the goal of the Support Group must be to encourage Ukrainians to carry out various priority actions, among which are:
* To, immediately, implement the obligations of the agreement on settlement of the situation in Ukraine of February 21, 2014;
* Withdraw from circulation illegal weapons, free the illegally occupied buildings, streets and squares, as well as organise objective investigation of acts of violence from December 2013 to February 2014;
* Without further delay, by the decision of the Parliament of Ukraine, call constitutional meeting with equal representation of all Ukrainian regions to prepare a new federative constitution which will secure the principles of the supremacy of the law; protection of human rights and all national minorities; freedom of speech and work of political parties and the mass media and other principles providing for political system of Ukraine as a democratic federative state with sovereignty and neutral military and political status.
* That the Russian language along with the Ukrainian language will have a status of the second state language; other languages will receive status according to the European convention on regional languages and languages of minorities;
* That the regions will, independently by a direct vote, elect to their legislative and executive organs and will have wide authority that reflects cultural and historical peculiarity of each of them, in the sphere of economics and finance, social sphere, language, education, external interregional relations, with providing protection of national minorities in each member of the Federation.
* Interference into the affairs of Church and interfaith relations will be prohibited and prosecuted.
International observers
Russia has also proposed the approval of the new constitution, holding of general elections to the supreme organs of power of Ukraine with elections to the legislative and executive organs in each member of the Federation under objective supervision of international observers.
The Embassy also said:“The right of Crimea to determine its fate according to the results of free will of its people during the March 16, 2014 referendum is recognised and respected.
“The political system created, based on the above mentioned principles and goals, its sovereignty, territorial integrity and neutral political and military status will be guaranteed by Russia, European Union and the USA and will be confirmed by the resolution of the UN (United Nations) Security Council.”
The statement addressed as well the call for a national referendum and noted that of the constitution of an independent Ukraine must be sent to the national referendum.
“The decision to affirm the draft of the new constitution will be made by the constitutional meeting with accord of all participants,” it said.
On March 11, by decree of the Supreme Council of Crimea, the Declaration of Independence of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and Sevastopol was adopted, according to which, if a decision to become part of Russia is made at the referendum of March 16, Crimea will be announced as an independent and sovereign state with a republican order.
Maintain peace
In accordance with it, Crimea will be a democratic and multinational state, with an obligation to maintain peace, international and inter-sectarian consent in its territory.
If the referendum brings the respective results, Crimea, as an independent and sovereign state will turn to the Russian Federation with the proposition to accept the Republic of Crimea on the basis of a respective interstate treaty into the Russian Federation as a new constituent entity of the Russian Federation.
The declaration contains international and legal justification of this step, with references to the UN Charter and other international and legal justification of it, as well as the decision of the UN’s International Court of Justice of July 22, 2010 on Kosovo.
With this decision adopted, at the request of the UN General Assembly at the initiative of Serbia, the International Court of Justice confirmed the fact that unilateral announcement of independence by a part of the state does not violate any provision of international law.
The same conclusion was clearly reached during the preceding hearings in the International Court of Justice, in particular, documents of speeches of official representatives of the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Austria, Denmark and other Western countries.
“The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs believes that the decision of the Crimea Parliament is absolutely within its rights. The Russian Federation will fully respect the results of the free will of the Crimea people at the referendum, to which (as is a known fact) the OSCE’s and bilateral observers were invited,” the Embassy said.

(by Crimean forces)