REUTERS
Ukrainian negotiator in the Tripartite Liaison Group Leonid Kuchma believes that the exchange of prisoners in Donbas can be implemented before the end of 2015, Darka Olifer, Kuchma's press secretary, wrote on Facebook on Thursday quoting the second Ukrainian president as saying.
"Our work in the framework of the Minsk process is not easy – it's security issues, and the work of political subgroups. At the moment, I have no reason to say that the Minsk agreements will be implemented this year. But there is a clause of the agreement that can be implemented before the end of 2015 – an exchange of prisoners. I call on representatives of certain areas of Donetsk and Luhansk regions to step up the process of exchange of prisoners – first of all, to release the seriously wounded people who need medical care," Kuchma said.
The representative of Ukraine said that the Ukrainian side had done and would continue to do everything possible to implement this clause.
Read also"LPR" and "DPR" trying to derail peace process, resort to provocations: GerashchenkoAs UNIAN reported earlier, Ukraine's representative to the humanitarian subgroup of the Trilateral Contact Group on resolving the Donbas crisis, MP Iryna Gerashchenko said that the release of the Ukrainian prisoners had been the key issue during the meeting of the sub-working group on humanitarian issues of the Tripartite Liaison Group in Minsk on November 24.
As of mid-November, 142 Ukrainians are being held captive by the combined Russian-separatist forces.