MOSCOW, February 11. /TASS/. The outcome of the latest meeting between Russian president’s aide Vladislav Surkov and US Special Representative for Ukraine Negotiations Kurt Volker is not hopeless, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an interview with the Deistvuyushchiye Litsva (Political Actors) with Nailya Asker-zade program on the Rossiya-1 television channel on Sunday.
The minister stressed that in dialogue with foreign partners Russia had always been offering concrete measures to get out of dead-end situations. "It did so in what concerns the implementation of the Minsk agreements," he said. "By the way, I am glad that the channel between Russia’s and US’ representatives on Ukraine in the Volker-Surkov format has been established."
"Not long ago, they had another meeting. I would say that the outcome is not hopeless," the Russian top diplomat noted. "They agreed to continue such talks."
The latest meeting between Surkov and Volker took place in Dubai on January 26, 2018. Before that they had three meetings: on August 21, 2017 in Minsk, on October 7, 2017 and November 13, 2017 in Belgrade.
Commenting on the Dubai talks, Surkov said that Volker had offered a plan of deployment of a United Nations mission in Donbass depending on the process of the implementation of political provisions of the Minsk agreements, which Moscow had been insisting on. "This time, the American have brought much more constructive proposals," Surkov said, adding that the "Dubai package of US’ initiatives, unlike the Belgrade package, looks quite realizable, at least, at first sight.".