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Kiev sees no point in Normandy format talks until there real perspectives for agreements

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavel Klimkin said on Sunday in an interview with Ukraine’s newspaper Kiev Post
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavel Klimkin Maxim Nikitin / TASS
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavel Klimkin
© Maxim Nikitin / TASS

KIEV, January 18. /TASS/. There is no point in further talks between the foreign ministers of the Normandy Quartet until there are real prospects to reach actual agreements, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavel Klimkin said on Sunday in an interview with Ukraine’s newspaper Kiev Post.

He said that the latest talks between foreign ministers of Ukraine, Russia, Germany and France in Berlin on January 12 had yielded no results. So, in his words, further such talks preliminarily planned for January 21 looked pointless if there were no perspectives to reach any agreements. “Why should we meet if we have nothing to tell each other,” he noted.

Touching on the prospects for a top level meeting in the Normandy format, the Ukrainian foreign minister said they were overestimated since no considerable progress had been reached so far. “Of key importance is the result not the date,” Klimkin said.

In their telephone conversation on Saturday, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and German Chancellor Angela Merkel spoke in favour of an immediate meeting of the Contact Group on settling the situation in Donbass and a meeting between the Normandy Quartet’s foreign ministers.