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29 Nov 2016

Normandy Four ministerial meeting on Ukraine in Minsk

Normandy Four ministerial meeting on Ukraine in Minsk

MINSK, 29 November (BelTA) – The meeting of the foreign ministers of Russia, Ukraine, Germany, and France opened at the President Hotel in Minsk, BelTA has learned.

Foreign Ministers Sergei Lavrov, Pavlo Klimkin, Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Jean-Marc Ayrault have arrived in Minsk to participate in the talks.

The agenda of the meeting was not announced. A number of media outlets suggested that the talks would discuss a roadmap to resolve the situation in the south-east of Ukraine. The Normandy Four leaders gave an instruction to draw up such a roadmap at a meeting in Berlin on 19 October.

German Minister of Foreign Affairs Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei LavrovEarlier Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov noted that, in accordance with the Berlin agreements, the roadmap must be based on the principle of “synchronous actions in ensuring security and advancing political reforms” under the Minsk accords of 12 February 2015, according to TASS.

German Minister of Foreign Affairs Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo KlimkinWork on the implementation of the agreements on the settlement of the situation in Ukraine has been slow. However, it should be continued in spite of all the difficulties, German Minister of Foreign Affairs Frank-Walter Steinmeier said when speaking at the Berlin Foreign Policy Forum. All these [various aspects of work on Minsk] are difficult, but, in my experience, we have no other choice but to commit ourselves to address these issues, Frank-Walter Steinmeier said. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin

French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault and Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin As BelTA reported earlier, on 19 October Berlin played host to the meeting of the Normandy Four presidents: Russian President Vladimir Putin, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Francois Hollande and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko. No documents were signed at the end of the meeting. The parties, however, agreed to draw up a roadmap, which, as Angela Merkel told a press conference, should be prepared and submitted for discussion within the ongoing month.

“All the participants of today’s meeting noted that the Minsk agreements should be used as the basis for the settlement of the situation in south-east Ukraine. All the parties confirmed their commitment to these agreements,” Vladimir Putin told reporters. Other participants of the meeting gave similar comments.

Vladimir Putin, Angela Merkel, Francois Hollande and Petro Poroshenko spent 17 hours in talks in Minsk in February 2015. The negotiations resulted in the Minsk Agreements that laid the basis for a peaceful settlement of the conflict in eastern Ukraine. Relevant matters are regularly discussed by the Trilateral Contact Group on Ukraine in the Belarusian capital.

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