ANKARA, June 8. /TASS/. An opportunity for a meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky will emerge only after the process of negotiations between Moscow and Kiev has resumed, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told a news conference following talks with his Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu on Wednesday.
"We proceed from the assumption that the teams of negotiators are to resume their work first," he said.
Lavrov stressed that the Ukrainian leader’s approach to talks with Russia was not serious.
"Zelensky wants to meet for meeting’s sake. He changes his mind with every passing day. He has said more than once: ‘We will resume the talks only if the Russians pull back their forces to the February 24 line.’ This kind of approach is not serious at all. Besides, it completely contradicts the initiatives that the Ukrainian delegation put forward here, in Istanbul, on March 29," he said.
Lavrov added that since mid-April Ukraine had not provided its response to the Russian version of the draft agreements with Kiev. "The ball has been in Ukraine’s court for almost two months now, since mid-April, when they revised their own approaches outlined in Istanbul, which we had been ready to accept as a basis. They promptly backtracked after a day or two. Nevertheless, the contacts were continued. Our vision of another version of the draft agreement was submitted to them in mid-April. We have not seen any reaction since," he concluded.