At a meeting of political advisers to the leaders of the Normandy Four (Russia, Germany, Ukraine, France), it was not possible to overcome the differences on the Minsk agreements, said Dmitry Kozak, deputy head of the Russian presidential administration. He said that the Kiev delegation “refused to even cite” the mentioned agreements. Andriy Yermak, head of the office of the President of Ukraine, claims that all parties have confirmed the need to implement the Minsk agreements.
Mr. Kozak said at a press conference after the meeting that almost nine hours of negotiations “ended without any visible, tangible results expressed in documents.” According to him, the main disagreement was the granting of a special status to Donbass. At the beginning of February, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry ruled out the implementation of this clause of the agreements.
“The agenda of the talks today was, first of all, political measures to resolve the conflict, these are issues related to the special status of Donbass, which should be enshrined in the constitution. This is the agenda that we have previously agreed upon. It was on these issues that we agreed that it was necessary to overcome at all costs the different interpretations of the Minsk agreements. It was not possible to overcome this, ”said the deputy head of the presidential administration of the Russian Federation (quoted by TASS).
As Dmitry Kozak clarified, the Ukrainian delegation took an “inflexible” position. He noted that the delegations of Russia, Germany and France “had a common understanding of how issues in the political sphere should be promoted.” “The position of Ukraine is unshakable. They refused in this document – a draft statement that was proposed for consideration – even to quote the Minsk agreements that the issues of the future post-conflict status of these territories should be resolved in consultations and discussions with representatives of individual regions (Donbass.— “b”), he said.
Mr. Kozak called the situation with the settlement of the conflict in the east of Ukraine “stalemate”. In his opinion, his colleagues should “formulate specific ideas on how to end this conflict.” He also said that he did not see the readiness of Paris and Berlin to “put pressure on Kiev” on the implementation of the Minsk agreements, and as a result, the Ukrainian delegation “continued the line that it had been following for the previous eight years.”
“It is difficult to say how ready Kiev is to try to resolve the conflict in Donbass by military means. Let’s hope that Kiev “has enough prudence” not to start hostilities against its own citizens on the other side of the line of contact,” added the deputy head of the presidential administration of the Russian Federation (quoted by Interfax).
Andriy Yermak, who also spoke at the briefing, said that all parties to the talks “confirmed their determination to continue” and called it a “very important” outcome of the meeting. “Everyone confirmed today that we have the Minsk agreements. They must be fulfilled,” assured the head of the Office of the President of Ukraine (quote from RIA Novosti).
He also said that it was not possible to agree on the final document, but he did not give reasons for this. At the same time, he assured that all participants in the talks had a desire to reach an agreement. “Today we could not come to any common document… I would like to say that it would be good if we could also agree on something at the second meeting in the Normandy format after a long break. There is such a desire, but today, as it happened, it happened,” said Mr. Yermak.
The previous round of negotiations between political advisers to the leaders of the Normandy Four was held in Paris on January 26. The last meeting also lasted a long time – more than eight hours. As a result, the parties agreed to reduce the existing differences and called for the observance of the ceasefire in Donbass. This week, a meeting of the Trilateral Contact Group took place, at which representatives of Ukraine, according to the assurances of the Russian side, refused to have a direct dialogue with Donbass.
Read more about the negotiations in the Normandy format in the publication “Kommersant” “New transfers received in Donbass.”