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NORMANDY FOUR SUMMIT

Ukraine’s top diplomat says peace in Ukraine is Zelensky’s only goal at Paris summit

"Peace, security and development in a single, democratic country is the only goal of the president and the entire negotiating team", Ukrainian Foreign Minister Vadim Pistaiko said

Ukraine's Foreign Minister Vadym Prystaiko EPA-EFE/SERGEY DOLZHENKO

Ukraine's Foreign Minister Vadym Prystaiko

© EPA-EFE/SERGEY DOLZHENKO

KIEV, December 8. /TASS/. Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky’s only goal at the upcoming Normandy Four summit in Paris is to achieve peace and ensure security in his country, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Vadim Pistaiko said on Sunday.

"Peace, security and development in a single, democratic country is the only goal of the president and the entire negotiating team," he wrote on his Twitter account ahead of the Paris summit.

However he did not refrain from anti-Russia rhetoric, saying that the Ukrainian negotiators would "keep in mind the interests of all Ukrainians who are divided along the contact line by Russia aggression and propaganda."

A summit in the Normandy format (Russia, Germany, France and Ukraine) will be held in Paris on December 9. Leaders of the four nations, Russian President Vladimir Putin, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Emmanuel Macron, and Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, will discuss ways of settling the Ukrainian crisis.

Talks in the so-called Normandy format over Ukraine began to be held in June 2014. During special ceremonies on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the allied landings in Normandy during World War II, the leaders of Russia, Ukraine, France and Germany for the first time discussed ways of settling the conflict in Donbass. A number of telephone conversations and summit meetings, as well as contacts between foreign ministers have been held since. The latest summit in the Normandy format was held in Berlin in October 2016. Such a long break between the summits is explained by Kiev’s failure to implement the agreements reached at the previous summits.

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