Poroshenko, Merkel, Hollande disappointed over lack of Minsk talks progress

  02 February 2015    Read: 993
Poroshenko, Merkel, Hollande disappointed over lack of Minsk talks progress
The leaders of Ukraine, Germany and France expressed disappointment over the lack of progress during Minsk talks on Ukrainian reconciliation, RIA Novosti reported the statement of the press service of Ukrainian President Petro Peroshenko.
"Petro Poroshenko, Angela Merkel and Francois Hollande expressed disappointment with the fact that the Trilateral Contact Group [on Ukrainian reconciliation] failed to make any progress during the recent meeting in Minsk," the statement published on Ukrainian president`s official website said.

The Ukrainian leader also stressed the need for Moscow`s official reaction to the failure of negotiations.

On Jan.31, former Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma, Russian Ambassador to Ukraine Mikhail Zurabov, OSCE envoy Heidi Tagliavin, as well as the representatives of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk "people`s republics" Denis Pushilin and Vladislav Deinego held a fresh round of peace talks in Minsk, the capital of Belarus.

The Contact Group on Ukrainian crisis, however, failed to reach any agreement.

Kiev and representatives of the breakaway republics blamed each other for failing the reconciliation talks in Minsk. Kiev`s negotiator Leonid Kuchma argued that the independence supporters had broken the talks down, since the "leaders" of Donetsk and Luhansk did not show up. In response, Pushilin and Deinego noted that Kuchma was not even officially appointed as a Ukrainian representative at the talks.

Kiev and independence supporters managed to reach a ceasefire deal during the September 5, 2014 Minsk talks. However, the confrontation between the warring parties intensified severely in the beginning of 2015.

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