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No plans for new meetings on Ukraine — Lavrov

Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov stressed the importance of organizing a national dialogue in Ukraine on the basis of OSCE head's roadmap

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov ITAR-TASS/Alexei Nikolsky

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov

© ITAR-TASS/Alexei Nikolsky

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No progress in Ukraine possible without participation of south-east — Lavrov

MOSCOW, May 12. /ITAR-TASS/. No new meetings on Ukraine have been planned yet, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said. Lavrov noted that new four-party talks on ways to resolve the Ukrainain crisis are not promising.

Efforts to settle the Ukrainian crisis will go nowhere without the participation of opponents of the Kiev authorities in the dialogue, Lavrov added.

“I have heard statements by Ukraine’s Acting Foreign Minister (Andrii) Deshchytsia and While House spokesman (Jay) Carney to the effect that the four-party format of the talks should be preserved (with Russia, the United States, the European Union and representatives of the Kiev regime), but I shall say once again that, without including the regime’s opponents into the direct dialogue over ways of settling the crisis, the efforts will go nowhere,” Lavrov said.

He added that both the US Secretary of State and the OSCE president had recognized that. The foreign minister stressed the importance of organizing a national dialogue in Ukraine on the basis of OSCE head's roadmap.

Russia's top diplomat also noted that other countries' ambassadors to Russia should report real facts about the situation in Ukraine to their respective governments. “Russian channels are being blocked in Ukraine, the West is seeking to fill them with their interpretation of events. But ambassadors in Moscow watch what Russian television shows and should say the truth about current events in Ukraine to their governments,” the foreign minister said.

Lavrov described as flagrant lies media rumors about his negative comments about the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic. “I am aware that lie and semi-truth (which is even worse) are being used actively in the current Ukrainian crisis by Ukrainian politicians and their Western patrons, but they had not come down to such a simple trick before,” the minister added.

The foreign minister added that Russia hopes that the implementation of referendum results in the Donetsk region and Luhansk Oblast will be civilized.

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