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Foreign minister: Ukraine pins hopes on Eastern Partnership Summit due to be held in Riga

Latvia holds the Presidency of the Council of the European Union during the first six months of the year 2015

KIEV, January 10. /TASS/. Kiev pins great hopes on the summit of the Eastern Partnership Summit due to be held in the Latvian capital Riga, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavel Klimkin said after a meeting with his Latvian counterpart Edgars Rinkevics on Saturday.

Latvia holds the Presidency of the Council of the European Union during the first six months of the year 2015.

“We have great expectations from the summit,” Klimkin said. “In particular, we must reach an understanding how assistance would be carried out in implementing the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement.”

The Ukrainian foreign minister pointed out that his country “is working to seek a solution to liberalization of a visa regime with Europe.”

“We view as important an achievement of new quality in cooperation between Ukraine and the EU,” Klimkin said.

Rinkevics said that during the summit its participants “will be able to analyze which path Ukraine should take.”

“Definitely, the Riga summit should create a road map, which could help the countries of European unity,” the Latvian foreign minister said. “We realize there exist lots of criteria Ukraine has to meet and we are ready to help it.”

Rinkevics said that on January 19 the EU representatives are set to discuss relations with Russia.

“I am going to visit Moscow in two days,” he said adding that after his visit the issue of relationship between the EU and Russia would be on the agenda of an EU meeting.

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