Moscow demanded from Kyiv written guarantees of compliance with the agreements
Moscow invited the Normandy Four partners to record all the group’s decisions on paper and publish them on the website.
Kommersant writes about this, citing sources familiar with the progress of negotiations to resolve the conflict in Donbass.
The newspaper notes that on April 7, telephone conversations between advisers to the leaders of the Normandy format countries took place, which the interlocutor familiar with the content of the conversation called inconclusive.
Against this background, the Russian side has put forward an initiative to make the work of the trilateral contact group (TCG) on Donbass more transparent: the results of its meetings are proposed to be recorded on paper and published on a special website.
“The essence of the Russian proposals is that the work needs to be formalized in terms of regulations and consolidation of results. And make the work of the TCG public so that the results are clear to the public,” explained the publication’s interlocutor.
According to him, Moscow is in favor of making decisions, immediately recording them as binding documents and publishing them.
This idea appears to have emerged after the recent failure of the advisory council, a new body within which representatives from Kyiv, Donetsk and Lugansk could directly seek compromises. Initially, the idea of creating an advisory council was recorded in the minutes of the TCG meeting on March 11, which was attended by the deputy head of the Kremlin administration Dmitry Kozak and the head of the office of the President of Ukraine Andrey Ermak. But then, despite Ermak’s preliminary consent, official Kyiv changed its position.
“After the Ukrainian side refused to create an advisory council, trust between Kiev and Moscow became even less,” commented the author of the Carnegie Moscow Center Konstantin Skorkin. “In addition, the negotiators cannot help but be embarrassed by the forced format of video communication. Everyone is afraid that their counterpart will later change their position, saying that negotiations via Skype are not serious.”
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