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Leaders of Normandy Four countries confirm readiness to meet

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky expects talks involving the Normandy Four advisors to take place within ten days and after that, a date may be set for a summit

VIENNA, September 15. /TASS/. All leaders of the Normandy Four countries (Russia, Germany, France and Ukraine) have agreed to hold a summit that may take place after the second meeting of their advisors, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky said at a joint press conference with Austrian President Alexander Van der Bellen in Vienna on Tuesday.

"All leaders of the Normandy Four group confirm their readiness to hold a meeting," he said. "There will be another meeting of advisors and a meeting between the leaders will follow," Zelensky added.

The Ukrainian president expects talks involving the Normandy Four advisors to take place within ten days and after that, a date may be set for a summit.

Moscow has repeatedly stressed that before making plans another Normandy Four summit, there is a need to implement the decisions made at the previous summit that had taken place in Paris in December 2019. Those particularly concern prisoner exchanges, the disengagement of forces and a comprehensive ceasefire. The parties have so far managed to conduct a partial prisoner swap and agree additional measures to ensure the ceasefire.

The September 11 meeting of political advisors did not bring any breakthrough, Deputy Chief of the Russian Presidential Office Dmitry Kozak said. According to him, the Ukrainian parliament’s resolution on local elections remains the stumbling block, which says that elections can take place in areas not controlled by Kiev only after control over the border with Russia is handed over to Ukraine. However, the Minsk Agreements point out that Ukraine will have control of the border after local elections are held in the region and the special status of Donbass takes effect. Kozak said the political advisors had agreed that Ukrainian lawmakers would soon consider a draft document modifying the resolution. However, Ukrainian parliament speaker Dmitry Razumkov said on Monday that there were currently no plans to reconsider the resolution on local elections.