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‘Meeting for the sake of meeting’ not needed, Normandy summit must bring peace — envoy

Russia does not need a Normandy Quartet meeting for the sake of a meeting, a diplomat stresses
Russia's Permanent Representative to the EU Vladimir Chizhov Mikhail Tereshchenko/TASS
Russia's Permanent Representative to the EU Vladimir Chizhov
© Mikhail Tereshchenko/TASS

ST. PETERSBURG, May 24. /TASS/. Russia does not need a Normandy Quartet (Germany, France, Russia, Ukraine) meeting for the sake of a meeting, it must put an end to the aggravation of the situation in Donbass, Russia's Permanent Representative to the EU Vladimir Chizhov said in an interview with TASS.

"It’s not a question of when [the Normandy summit will be held] or who will participate, the most crucial thing is the agreements that must be signed during the meeting," the diplomat said. "Maybe somebody aims to hold a meeting for the sake of meeting, but definitely not us."

"Right now the situation in Donbass is rather dire, and it has worsened recently, not only according to us, but according to the OSCE’s special monitoring mission to Ukraine as well," Chizhov noted. "We have to hold a meeting that would put an end to the current exacerbation of the situation, and get us back on a path towards conflict resolution based on the Minsk agreements and other documents, including Steinmeier’s plan, signed by [Ukraine’s president] Petro Poroshenko. Right now, Poroshenko chooses to pretend that this plan never existed, or at least behaves that way."

Russia’s envoy to the EU also stated that as Ukraine’s election approaches, with slightly less than a year left, "Poroshenko will suffer memory losses more often."