Ukraine in Arabic | Ukraine expects pozitive results from Minsk dialogue on Friday
KYIV/Ukraine in Arabic/ Ukraine’s Petro Poroshenko called on all sides to support an initiative agreed by himself and Vladimir Putin to get the so-called contact group meeting in Minsk on Friday, September 5, to discuss a step-by-step peace process. On a visit to Mongolia, President Putin also described his views as very close to those of his Ukrainian counterpart.
Representatives of Ukraine, Russia and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) are scheduled to hold more talks in Minsk on Friday on ending the six-month conflict between Kiev's forces and pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine.
Earlier on Wednesday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Russian President Vladimir Putin and Poroshenko discussed the first steps to bringing an end to the bloodshed in eastern Ukraine over the telephone and that the presidents’ views to exiting the crisis were extremely similar.
Later in the day, Putin outlined a seven-point plan for the settlement of the crisis in Ukraine, calling on Kiev to withdraw troops from southeastern regions of the country and militia to cease military advances. The plan also includes, among other proposals, the creation of an international monitoring force and the establishment of a humanitarian corridor.
On September 1, the Contact Group on Ukrainian reconciliation, comprising Russia, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the Ukrainian government and eastern Ukraine’s independence supporters met in the Belarusian capital Minsk.
Representatives from the Donetsk and Luhansk people’s republics said during the meeting that if the self-proclaimed republics received certain legislative guarantees of their special status, they would make every effort to “save the single economic, cultural and political space of Ukraine and the whole space of the Russian-Ukrainian civilization."
However the US has already decried Putin’s proposals as lacking a major requirement for peace – that being the complete withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukrainian territory.