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Nuland-Surkov consultations on Donbas settlement end in Kaliningrad

The meeting lasted over four hours

Kremlin aide Vladislav Surkov ITAR-TASS/Alexandra Mudrats

Kremlin aide Vladislav Surkov

© ITAR-TASS/Alexandra Mudrats

KALININGRAD, January 15 /TASS/. Russian president’s aide Vladislav Surkov and Victoria Nuland, the US Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, have finished consultations on the Minsk agreements for the Ukraine settlement after more than 4 hours of discussion, Pavel Mamontov, the Russian Foreign Ministry representative in the Kaliningrad region, told TASS on Friday.

The meeting took place at a state residence belonging to the Russian president’s property management department in the town of Pionersky near the city of Kaliningrad, Russia’s westernmost exclave bordering on Lithuania and Poland.

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"The consultations are over. They took place behind the closed doors," Mamontov said adding that after the talks Nuland had left for the Lithuanian border. "She is going to leave Russia today," Mamontov stressed.

According to US State Department Spokesman John Kirby, the Surkov-Nuland meeting continued the contacts, which had started during negotiations of Russian President Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov with US Secretary of State John Kerry who visited Moscow on December 15, 2015.

Kirby believes that the Surkov-Nuland consultations should be regarded as part of US efforts to work together with Russia with an aim to guarantee full implementation of the Minsk agreements in close cooperation with the "Normandy Four" states, including Russia, Ukraine, Germany and France.

Nuland arrived in Kaliningrad from neighbouring Lithuania earlier on Friday. Vladislav Surkov arrived in the Kaliningrad region a day earlier on January 14.

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