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Premature to talk about next Normandy Four summit — Kremlin

According to the spokesman, although it was still "premature" to speak about a new summit, there is the will to continue the settlement process

MOSCOW, September 16. /TASS/. The agreements reached by the Normandy Four group (Germany, Russia, Ukraine and France) at the Paris summit have not been implemented yet, so it is still early to talk about a next Normandy Four summit, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Wednesday.

According to the Kremlin spokesman, although it was still "premature" to speak about a new summit, there is the will to continue the settlement process. "Along with this, we can certainly confirm that everyone wants to have the process [settlement in Ukraine] continued. However, as our president [Vladimir Putin] has reiterated, homework must be done and those agreements reached at the previous [summit] in Paris should be implemented," Peskov noted.

"It is not possible yet to state that we have advanced in this. There is willingness to carry on with the work, but the previous agreements should be implemented," the Kremlin spokesman stressed.

Peskov found it difficult to say whether the summit could take place by the end of the year. "It is hard to say. Yes, there are certain positive shifts, but as for the rest, if we read the Paris agreement, we will see that it is still early to report to the heads of state," the presidential press secretary stated.

The first talks of the Normandy Four group took place in France in June 2014 amid commemorations of the 70th anniversary of the landing of allied troops in Normandy. Then the leaders of Russia, Ukraine, France and Germany met for the first time to try to find a solution to the conflict in the southeastern Ukrainian region of Donbass.

The latest summit was held in Paris on December 9, 2019. The next summit was expected to be held in a four months’ time. Recently, the sides have been negotiating prospects for cooperation within the Normandy Four format. On September 11, the leaders’ political advisers held talks in Berlin. Deputy Chief of Staff of the Presidential Executive Office Dmitry Kozak said that the talks had not yielded a breakthrough and that a next Normandy Four summit was not touched upon at them.