Negotiations aimed to advance ceasefire in eastern Ukraine and prepare a Ukraine summit in Astana have started in Berlin on Jan. 5 and will continue on Jan. 9. The talks are conducted with participation of the prominent diplomats from Russia, Ukraine, France and Germany.
After the Jan. 5 meeting, some “unresolved issues remain,” according to the German Foreign Ministry. On Jan. 9 foreign ministers of the four countries will held negotiations over the phone and prepare ground for the Ukraine summit that will take place in Astana, Kazakhstan, on Jan. 15, according to Oleksiy Makeyev, head of department for politics and communications of Ukraine’s foreign ministry, who represented Ukraine in Berlin.
The main topic of the discussion for the contact group is the ceasefire agreement implementation.
“The meeting of leaders of four countries in Astana has to deliver actual results. That’s why the work on the project of a document (for the meeting) is underway,” Makeyev wrote on Twitter after the talks ended on Jan. 5.
Previous meeting in Normandy format at presidential level was held in Milan in October last year. Then the talks failed to deliver any results.
Both France and Germany seem skeptical about the upcoming meeting in Astana.
“Such a meeting only makes sense if we can make real progress,” Steffen Seibert, spokesperson of Germany’s chancellor Angela Merkel, was quoted by Reuters news agency as saying.
“We have a very clear idea of what constitutes real progress. This would be first and foremost achieving the full implementation of the Minsk peace accord and a genuine and lasting ceasefire, a contact line between areas controlled by Ukraine and rebels, and a withdrawal of heavy weaponry. Such things must be prepared in advance,” Seibert was quoted as saying.
Yet hoping for progress President of France Francois Hollande said he will only come to Astana if there is a possibility of making it.
“If it’s just to meet and talk without making any actual advances then there’s no point. But I think there will be progress,” Hollande said in an interview with France Inter radio on Jan. 5.
Kyiv Post staff writer Anastasia Forina can be reached at [email protected].
