(VOVworld) - Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has signed a law on a special status for Donbass. The announcement was published on the presidential website on Thursday. The law ‘On special procedure of local self-government in separate districts of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions” defines a provisional procedure of organizing local self-rule and operation of local power bodies in separate districts of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions. The key goal is to create conditions to normalize the situation as soon as possible, restore law and order, constitutional rights and freedoms of citizens. The special status will be valid in 3 years.

At a meeting of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) on Thursday, Andrei Kelin, Russia’s Permanent Representative at the OSCE, said it’s important to support proponents of peaceful resolution for the current crisis in eastern Ukraine. Extremists in Ukraine should be condemned by the international community including the OSCE.