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Kiev hopes Contact Group will meet in Minsk on December 12

“Tomorrow the meeting will not be held. Most probably, it will be held on Friday and will yield concrete results,” Casily Vovk, the chief of the Security Service’s investigation department said

KIEV, December 8. /TASS/. The Contact Group on Ukraine will meet in Minsk on Friday, December 12, Casily Vovk, the chief of the Ukrainian Security Service’s investigation department, said on Monday.

“Tomorrow the meeting will not be held. Most probably, it will be held on Friday and will yield concrete results,” he told Ukraine’s ICTV television channel.

Meanwhile, the Ukrainian foreign ministry said it hoped the next round of Minsk talks would be held the soonest possible. “The probability of such talks is high, but the opponents seek to rearrange the schedule and avoid them,” Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba told Channel 5. “We are working to organize this meeting and to make another step towards the implementation of the Minsk agreements.”

Earlier on Monday, Vladislav Deinego, the LPR’s representative at the talks, told TASS the two self-proclaimed republics - the Luganks and Donetsk People’s Republics, or LPR and DPR - had agreed for a Contact Group meeting on December 12. “The date agreed between the DPR and LPR is December 12,” he said. “The LPR is ready to take part in the talks on the agreed date.”

In his words, his republic’s leaders were analyzing Kiev’s latest actions in respect of Donbass.

“We are ready for talks at any minute. We will try to understand the logic of actions. For instance, a bill has been submitted to the Verkhovna Rada /Ukraine’s parliament/ to rearrange the Lugansk and Donetsk regions. We are getting prepared and are scrutinizing the situation. I was seriously perplexed by today’s bills. On November 27 and 28, two bills were submitted on a special status. We are analyzing them,” Deinego said.

“To achieve our goals, we are ready to work with anyone who can help reach the result,” he stressed.

Last week, Ukrainian President Pyotr Poroshenko said December 9 could be a possible date for another meeting of the Contact Group on Ukraine.

The parties to the Ukrainian conflict agreed on a ceasefire at OSCE /Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe/-mediated talks on September 5 in Belarusian capital. On September 20 in Minsk, the Trilateral Contact Group on Ukraine comprising representatives of Ukraine, Russia and the OSCE adopted a memorandum outlining the parameters for the implementation of commitments on the ceasefire in Ukraine laid down in the Minsk Protocol of September 5. The document contains nine points, including in particular a ban on the use of all armaments and withdrawal of weapons with the calibres of over 100 millimetres to a distance of 15 kilometres from the contact line from each side. The OSCE was tasked with controlling the implementation of memorandum provisions. The document was signed by OSCE envoy Heidi Tagliavini, Ukraine’s former president Leonid Kuchma, Russia’s Ambassador to Kiev Mikhail Zurabov, DPR Prime Minister Aleksandr Zakharchenko and the head of Lugansk People’s Republic /LPR/, Igor Plotnitsky.