SIMFEROPOL, May 14 (RIA Novosti) – Crimean authorities are ready to cooperate with Ukraine’s breakaway regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, Crimean Prime Minister Sergei Aksyonov said Wednesday.
“Citizens have expressed their will at a referendum, like Crimeans did … The government of the Crimean Republic … is ready to work with these regions in the near future,” Aksyonov said at a press conference.
The Crimean leader added that the Luhansk and Donetsk regions were in the process of forming their own government structures. “As soon as those are formed, it’ll be clear who to talk to, and that’s what we’ll do,” he explained.
Following a regime change in Ukraine in late February, the citizens of the predominantly Russian-speaking southeastern regions of Ukraine and the population of the Crimean peninsula refused to recognize the legitimacy of the country’s interim government.
After the success of the Crimean secession vote, Donetsk and Luhansk called for federalization and referendums on greater autonomy within Ukraine, with rallies sweeping throughout the region. According to local officials in Donetsk and Luhansk, some 90 percent of voters in both regions supported the measure to secede from Ukraine and become independent sovereign states during referendums on Sunday.
Both republics declared themselves sovereign states on Monday, with Donetsk planning to ask Moscow to join Russia. The Luhansk leadership also said it did not rule out the possibility of a referendum on becoming part of Russia.
Moscow said it respected the will of the people in Ukraine’s southeastern provinces and hoped the regime in Kiev would do the same. The US and EU denounced the results of the vote.
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