Western foreign ministers do not have clear answers as to why it is necessary to hold a meeting in the Normandy format if the Ukrainian side did not fulfill its obligations at the last summit.
Russian Foreign Ministry representative Maria Zakharova stated this during a briefing in Moscow, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
Answering the question whether a meeting of the foreign ministers of the Normandy format countries will take place, Zakharova said that Russia’s position here has not changed.
“We proceed from the need for careful preparation of such an event, including, of course, the development of a final document. It should reflect the state of the negotiation process, including the progress of implementation of the decisions of the Paris Fourth Summit on December 9, 2019 and, of course, new guidelines for promoting an internal Ukrainian settlement based on the Minsk agreements.
Is there such a document today, a draft of it? The answer is no. This document is not even in the draft. We also promptly conveyed our own vision of the results of the ministerial meeting to the participants of the Normandy Quartet,” said a representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
At the same time, she noted that the Russian side never received a reaction to its developments in this matter.
“Without a clear understanding of the possible results of such a meeting, it makes no sense to talk about any dates for its holding. Again, our colleagues know our position well. We have officially communicated our point of view to our German and French partners. In particular, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov voiced it in a conversation with a colleague from France on the sidelines of the G-20 summit meeting in Rome on October 31.
In particular, the Russian minister directly asked his French colleague: do the partners have any understanding regarding the results of the corresponding meeting in the Normandy format at the ministerial level? There was no clear answer at that time.
“The French colleague was also informed that Lavrov’s work schedule in the near future does not allow him to take part in the proposed ministerial meeting of the Normandy Four,” Zakharova added.