Normandy Quartet – European Affairs Magazine

Russia is ready to take part in the Normandy Quartet meeting

25 Novembre 2016 BreakingNews @en di

On Thursday, Russian Foreign Minister, Sergey lavorv, during a press conference, affirmed that Russia is ready to take part in a new Normandy Quartet (Russia, Germany, France, Ukraine) meeting scheduled for November 29, provided it will not be another pointless meeting. On Wednesday, German top diplomat Frank Walter Steinmeier, while addressing the Bundestag (German Parliament), said that Germany and France had plans to arrange a Normandy Quartet ministerial meeting in Belarus’s capital of Minsk on November 29. On 23rd of November, the members of Contact Group ( Ukraine, Russian federation, Donetsk’s People Republic and Lugansk’s People republic) met during a meeting, but they didn’t reach any positive result. The parties, in particular, needs to agree on the ways to put into effect the law on the special status of Donbass, ensure that the parties to the conflict take simultaneous steps in the security sphere while the Ukrainian authorities implement political reforms in accordance with the Minsk agreements.

There’s still no chance for meeting of the Normandy Quartet

On Monday, Russian Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov, affirmed that there is still no possibility in sight for another ministerial meeting of the Normandy Quartet (Russia, Germany, France, Ukraine) since a road map on Donbass, that the ministers will have to approve, hasn’t been agreed on yet. Lavrov also said that the Normandy Quartet leaders gave instructions to their foreign policy aides to draw up a road map, the aides have been maintaining constant contacts with each other. The aides have been working to outline the sequence of steps, taking into account the principle of simultaneous efforts, agreed on by the four leaders in Berlin on 20th of October. The principle concerns security sphere and political reforms that the Ukrainian authorities should carry out according to the Minsk agreements dated February 12, 2015.