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UN secretary-general to hold talks with Russian, Ukrainian foreign ministers Feb 23

UNITED NATIONS, February 21. /TASS/. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will hold separate talks with Russian and Ukrainian foreign ministers, Sergey Lavrov and Pavel Klimkin, on Monday, February 23, the UN secretary-general’s deputy spokesman, Farhan Haq told TASS on Friday.

There will be separate meetings. First, Ban will meet with Lavrov at about noon (Monday evening Moscow time) and then with Klimkin, Haq said.

The Russian foreign minister will arrive in New York for UN Security Council debates on ways of maintaining peace and security and the related lessons of history. The meeting will be timed for the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II. It will be held under the chairmanship of Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi.

On Friday, Ban and Klimkin talked on the telephone to discuss the situation in Donbass among other things. The UN Secretary-General expressed concern over the dangerous situation in the east of Ukraine and voiced the hope that the ceasefire regimen, agreed in Minsk on February 12, will be strictly observed throughout the region.

Ban and Klimkin touched upon the possibility of deploying a peace-keeping mission in the area of the Donbass conflict. "The UN Secretary-General told Klimkin that the United Nations would follow any decision the UN Security Council might adopt on that score," the UN secretary-general’s spokesman Stephane Dujarric told the media.