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Zelensky to appoint new team of negotiators in Contact Group next week, says top diplomat

Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council secretary Alexander Danilyuk said earlier that Ukraine planned to change negotiators in the subgroups of the Contact Group on the Donbass settlement

KIEV, May 31. /TASS/. Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky will appoint Kiev’s new negotiators in the Contact Group on the settlement of the situation in Donbass next week, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavel Klimkin said on Friday.

"The Minsk format will be renewed. As far as I understand, it will be done on June 5," he said in an interview with the Novoye Vremya (New Time) radio station. "A new team will be appointed. It will be presented next week. It will be done by the president. You will see some familiar faces and, probably, new ones."

Secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council Alexander Danilyuk said earlier that Ukraine planned to change its negotiators in the subgroups of the Contact Group on the settlement of the conflict in Donbass. He did not rule out that the leader of the Opposition Platform For Life, Viktor Medvedchuk, might be appointed Kiev’s official envoy to one of the subgroups.

The Contact Group on settling the situation in eastern Ukraine was set up in June 2014. Later, four subgroups (on security, on political, economic and humanitarian matters) were established within it. The Contact Group helped reach the Minsk agreements of September 5 and 19, 2014, the so-called Minsk-1 package. A summit of the Normandy Quartet, comprised of Germany, France, Russia and Ukraine, on February 12, 2015 in Minsk agreed the Package of Measures to implement the Minsk agreements, also known as Minsk-2 package.

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Ukraine Vladimir Zelensky

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