KIEV, October 4. /TASS/. Ukraine hopes to be granted the status of a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council on October 15, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said in an interview with Ukrainian television channels on Sunday.
"We have serious grounds for optimism," he said, adding it was a "very important solution" for Ukraine, which "we are actively working on."
He did not rule out he would attend the United Nations General Assembly session on October 15, which was to elect non-permanent members of the Security Council. "I will probably be present at this session," he said.
Normandy Four summit looked at steps to speed up implementation of Minsk accords
The Normandy Four summit in Paris discussed steps to speed up the implementation of the Minsk agreements, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said.
"We signed no documents, we discussed steps to speed up the implementation of the Minsk agreements," he said in an interview with Ukrainian television channels.
He said among topics under discussion were local elections in Donbass. He said there was no Morel Morel plan on elections in those districts of Donbass that were not controlled by Kiev, as media claimed. "There has never been such a plan. There are certain proposals. Some of them can be taken into consideration, others - not. We said it at the Paris meeting and this stance was supported," Poroshenko said.
Apart from that, Ukrainian political forces will take full-format participation in local elections in Donbass. "It is a constitutional norm. [Pierre] Morel [a French diplomat coordinating work of the subgroup for political issues formed as part of the Contact Group on Ukraine - TASS] accepted this and revoked his proposal," Poroshenko said, adding that another condition for elections was their coverage in the Ukrainian mass media.
Local elections in certain districts of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions are among the provisions of the of the February 12 comprehensive action plan to fulfil the Minsk accords worked out by the leaders of Russia, Ukraine, Germany and France in the search for peace in the embattled eastern Donbass region.
The Package of Measures, known as Minsk-2, envisaged a ceasefire between Ukrainian government forces and people’s militias in the self-proclaimed republic in Donetsk and Lugansk starting from February 15 and subsequent withdrawal of heavy weapons from the line of engagement. The deal also laid out a roadmap for a lasting settlement in Ukraine, including local elections and constitutional reform to give more autonomy to the war-torn eastern regions.