Ukraine parliament ratifies EU deal, offers rebels self-rule
(Reuters) – Ukraine ratified a sweeping agreement with the European Union on Tuesday – an issue at the heart of the Russia-West crisis over its future – and sought to blunt the independence drive of Russian-backed separatists by offering them temporary and limited self-rule.
But though Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko savored a historic triumph with parliament’s seal of approval for the EU deal, his peacemaking efforts drew derision from separatists and some mainstream politicians, while his military reported three more deaths of Ukrainian servicemen despite an 11-day ceasefire.
“No nation has ever paid such a high price to become Europeans,” Poroshenko told parliament referring to the bloody conflict that has gripped Ukraine since his predecessor, Viktor Yanukovich, walked away from the EU pact last November in favor of closer ties with Ukraine’s former Soviet master, Russia.
After Yanukovich fled to Russia in February in the face of huge street protests, Moscow denounced a pro-Western “coup” against him, annexed Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula and subsequently backed armed pro-Russian separatists in eastern regions in their drive for independence from Kiev.
The chain of events has provoked the worst crisis between Russia and the West since the Cold War. The United States and its Western allies imposed sanctions against Moscow over a conflict with pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine in which more than 3,000 people have been killed.
Just moments earlier, at a closed session of parliament, deputies voted in support of Poroshenko’s plan to grant “special status’ to the ‘people’s republics’ proclaimed by the separatists.
Poroshenko elaborated the plan after reluctantly agreeing to a ceasefire on Sept. 5 following battlefield losses and heavy Ukrainian casualties which Kiev said were caused by Russian troops entering the fight on behalf of the rebels.
The law would grant self-rule to separatist-minded regions for a three-year period and allow them to “strengthen and deepen” relations with neighboring Russian regions.
It would allow the heavily-armed rebels to set up their own police forces and hold their own local elections in December.
