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Ukraine won’t discuss Crimea at Normandy Four — foreign minister

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky told the press in October that he expects a Normandy Four meeting in November, underlining that he would discuss Crimea at the summit

© Zurab Javakhadze/TASS

KIEV, November 14. /TASS/. Kiev does not intend to raise the issue of Crimea at Normandy Four talks, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Vadim Pristaiko said in an interview with BBC News Ukraine published on Thursday in Russian.

"The Normandy talks do not involve Crimea, it is discussed in other frameworks," the minister said. Pristaiko specified that one of those frameworks where Kiev intends to bring up Crimea is the United Nations.

Read also

Zelensky vows his mission as president is to stop war in Donbass

This extract from the interview was not published by BBC News Ukrainian and only made it into the Russian-language version.

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky told the press in October that he expects a Normandy Four meeting in November, underlining that he would discuss Crimea at the summit.

Commenting on this statement by Zelensky, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov stressed that the Kremlin believe it is impossible to discuss Crimea’s return to Ukraine in any framework at all let alone the Normandy Four.

After the coup d’etat in Ukraine in February 2014, Crimea and Sevastopol held a referendum, in which 96.7% of Crimeans and 95.6% of Sevastopol voters chose to secede from Ukraine and join Russia. Eighty percent of the voting population participated in the referendum. Russian President Vladimir Putin signed the reunification deal on March 18, 2014, which the Federation Council (upper house of the Russian parliament) ratified on March 21, 2014. Despite the convincing results of the referendum, Kiev refused to recognize Crimea as a part of Russia.

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