MINSK, November 18. /TASS/. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov believes that conditions should be created for the Minsk peace process to resume for Ukrainian crisis settlement. Lavrov said so at a meeting with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko on Tuesday.
“The Minsk peace deals are probably the only acts which are supported by all parties without exclusion — by Ukrainian conflicting parties, Russia, Belarus, the European Union and the United States. Therefore, the main task is to create conditions for the Minsk peace process to resume,” Lavrov said, noting that this was the only format in which conflicting parties were negotiating.
There is a basis for talks in the Minsk protocol and the Minsk memorandum, the Russian foreign minister said. “We call for each of these documents to be fulfilled strictly,” the minister said, noting that Ukraine’s southeast stated publicly they were ready for this.
“We hope that Kiev’s recent action when the decree over sharp cuts in socio-economic processes and termination of banking services in Ukraine’s southeast was adopted will not become an insurmountable obstacle to resume the Minsk peace process,” Lavrov said.
He noted that participants in a joint meeting of the boards of Russian and Belarusian diplomatic agencies have debated the situation in Europe in view of relations between each of these countries with the European Union in the context of “our work in the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), where the Ukrainian issue symbolizes the demonstration of the entire scope of disagreements which had amassed for the last couple of decades, when problems had been accumulating in security, incapability of our Western partners to give up divide lines and to create a common space of equal security, equitable economic and humanitarian co-operation.”
“This is obvious that the crisis is not overcome,” Lavrov said, noting that he shared the Minsk position towards current events in Ukraine. “We would like direct dialogue to resume after election on a new basis, as the latter was launched here, in Minsk,” Lavrov said. He noted that “we give close attention” to ensuring of Russian and Belarusian interests in the union state.