DPR, LPR leaders refuse to sign document prepared by "Normandy Quartet" - source

KIEV, February 12. /TASS/. Leaders of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics (DPR and LPR) Alexander Zakharchenko and Igor Plotnitsky have refused to sign the document prepared by the "Normandy Quartet" at the Contact Group meeting in Minsk, an informed source told TASS on Thursday. "The ‘Quartet’ prepared the document, coordinated it. When the Contact Group was reviewing the document, Zakharchenko and Plotnitsky refused to sign it," the source said. Talks in Minsk bring together former Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma and Kiev’s special representative for humanitarian issues Viktor Medvedchuk, both representing the Ukrainian side, alongside representatives of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics (DPR and LPR), Denis Pushilin and Vladislav Deinego, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s (OSCE) special envoy to Ukraine, Heidi Tagliavini, and Russia’s ambassador to Ukraine, Mikhail Zurabov, who acts as a mediator. Among the participants in the "Normandy Quartet" negotiations were Russian President Vladimir Putin, French President Frnacois Hollande, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko. Read more