Nursultan Nazarbayev did offer assistance to Vladimir Zelensky in organizing negotiations with Vladimir Putin, but this was an offer without specifics, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Vadim Prystaiko stated this in a commentary to “BBC Ukraine”.
According to Prystaiko, he himself was at a meeting between Nazarbayev and Zelensky in Japan, where this was discussed. It was about the general proposal of the former leader of Kazakhstan to help organize such a meeting.
“The President (Zelensky - ed.) said that he tells both Merkel and Macron that “of course, I need to meet with Putin, because we cannot move the process forward without a meeting.” There was no such conversation about “let’s do this meeting instead of something,” the minister said.
According to him, Nazarbayev’s proposal was purely diplomatic in nature.
“If you need help, I’m ready to help. Zelensky’s answer was: “Thank you, we need any help, let’s meet,” Prystaiko explained.
The minister recalled that earlier Kazakhstan had already offered to hold negotiations on resolving the situation in Donbass instead of Minsk. But from a logistics point of view, it is more difficult than Minsk - “you have to fly for another 5 hours.”
“Nobody wants to offend anyone, but we are happy with what we have - the negotiating position in Minsk. It is convenient for everyone. I don’t think that the meeting can be in Astana (now Nur-Sultan - ed.). Most likely, either in Berlin or Paris,” the minister said.
Earlier, the first President of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev, proposed organizing a one-on-one meeting between Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky and Russian leader Vladimir Putin in Kazakhstan.