MINSK, June 25. /TASS/. Talks about the settlement of the conflict in Ukraine should start with a clean slate, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said at a meeting with students and teachers in Minsk.

"It needs to be a start with a clean slate. I mean there shouldn’t be any previously prepared terms that will be suggested [by the West] right and left," he said at the Academy of Public Administration under the aegis of the President of the Republic of Belarus.

"Or let them give us some realistic picture of how the West sees this (settlement - TASS)," Lavrov went on to say.

He said Moscow's position on the issue was laid out by Russian President Vladimir Putin June 14 as he met with the Foreign Ministry leadership.

The minister said Russia had put forward some conditions for the talks. Among them are the demilitarized status of Ukraine and the restoration of the rights of the Russian and Russian-speaking people living on its territory. According to Lavrov, their rights are now being grossly violated. The minister said the West does not urge Ukraine to respect the rights of ethnic minorities. According to Lavrov, the West insists that it will not interfere in Ukrainian internal affairs, and proposes to solve the issue on the basis of respect for the UN Charter and the principles of territorial integrity of Ukraine.

The minister also said that "in addition to the correlation between territorial integrity and the principle of self-determination of peoples, the first article of the UN Charter requires all UN members to respect human rights and fundamental freedoms of everyone, making no distinction based on race, sex, language or religion.".