Arseniy Yatsenyuk: We stick up for negotiation format exceptionally with participation of Ukraine, EU, U.S.A. and Russia

He noted he “supports entirely” the position of Herman Van Rompuy regarding Geneva agreement.

“We understand Russian [language] very well, that’s why we don’t believe the words. Statements aired by the Russian Federation contradict their actions completely. Russia should stop supporting terrorists, urge them to lay down the weapon, stop financing them, make them free the buildings – then there will be peace in Ukraine,” the Head of Government stressed.  

Arseniy Yatsenyuk emphasized that any attempts to derail the presidential elections slated for May 25 would fail: “We are falling over ourselves to make the elections fair and transparent, despite the fact that it will be hard to hold them on certain territories of Donetsk and Luhansk regions. However, there is time left before the elections and the situation must turn stable”.

He accentuated that aftermath the elections Ukraine “will have a Ukrainian national, legitimate President who should pay the first visit to Brussels and place the first signature under an Agreement on fully fledged free trade area with the European Union”.

The Prime Minister stressed, throughout several months the Cabinet of Ministers has been engaged into a nationwide dialog. Arseniy Yatsenyuk reminded he had applied to the Eastern regions with distinct positions how to improve the life of Ukrainians: “Among other things I have answered all the questions which worry Eastern Ukraine – language issues, Constitution, territorial integrity, history”.

He added the Government’s members had attended Odessa, Donetsk, Luhansk, Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Mykolayiv: “Now in Kyiv we want to launch a broad initiative of a nationwide dialog and encourage to participate the eastern, central, western regions – entire Ukraine”.

According to him, the agenda for the roundtable should include amendments to the Constitution, decentralizing of power and handing over authorities from the central authorities to the local communities, true corruption fight in the central and local bodies. In addition, such agenda should contain economic development problems, “as the country is facing extremely difficult economic problems, including constant Russian pressure”, and “humanitarian problems “in order to give final answers to the questions of language, history, culture”.

“We realize that it is not possible to solve all the questions at once. But to make the Constitutional changes, when each Ukrainian citizen will see an indivisible Ukraine and his own community in this united Ukraine – we feel up to do this,” the Head of Government emphasized.

“We believe we will manage to stabilize the situation. Ukraine is the part of European community, we share European values. We will hold the nationwide dialog and united Ukraine will be moving towards the European Union,” Arseniy Yatsenyuk said.