KRASNODAR, June 28. /TASS/. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has said that he knows nothing about plans to gather a meeting in the Normandy Format (Russia, Ukraine, France, and Germany) in the near future.
"I know nothing about such plans," the minister said, replying to a relevant question, "We received proposals to organize talks at least by phone. I think that related protocol services should resolve the organizing issues."
On Monday, Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that possibility of a telephone conversation in the Normandy Four is being worked out via diplomatic channels.
On speculations about any new ideas on Donbass settlement
Speculations about any new ideas on peace settlement in Donbass are little more than devil's work and it is important now to fulfill the Minsk accords, Lavrov said.
"There are the Minsk accords and what we're hearing a yet another time right now about new ideas of some sort is devil's work, as the Russians put it," Lavrov said. "The Minsk accords have received the UN Security Council's approval," he said. "They are highly unambiguous and well-specified and they should be fulfilled."
"When the Normandy Format (Russia, Ukraine, France, and Germany) resumes work at top level, we’ll focus on it the attention of our partners, including Germany and France that undersigned the implementation of these accords and that have very serious influence on Kiev," Lavrov said.
"And we on our part will be ready to meet them halfway," he said.
Lavrov also said Ukrainian government should begin a direct and honest dialogue with the people in the country’s east who refused to accept the February 2014 state coup in Kiev.
He indicated that the Ukrainian authorities should do it in the format of the Ukraine Contact Group, which the Normandy Format bolsters but does not substitute for.