Interfax: Russian diplomat says Kiev needs to negotiate with rebels, not Moscow

(Interfax – Moscow, November 18, 2014) Kiev should conduct negotiations on the settlement of the Ukrainian crisis not with Moscow, but with the militia from southeast Ukraine, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Grigoriy Karasin has said.

“The Kiev government should conduct negotiations not with Moscow, but with representatives of southeast Ukraine,” he told Interfax.

This was how the high-ranking diplomat commented on the proposal by Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk to the Russian side to conduct negotiations on the de-escalation of the Ukrainian conflict on neutral territory.

“And in that there’s the fundamental idea that the Kiev government is trying to completely evade for some reason,” Karasin added.

Answering the question of whether Russia was prepared to participate in new international talks on Ukraine anyway, Karasin said that Moscow has never refused such meetings.

“The Russian Federation from the very beginning participated in all possible formats with the aim of obtaining a settlement in southeast Ukraine. These included the meetings in Geneva and the passing of the corresponding Geneva declaration on 17 April. After that the Russian foreign minister participated in the Berlin meeting. Representatives of Russia took part in the meetings of the contact group in Minsk and the drawing up of the corresponding protocol and memorandum,” the deputy head of the Foreign Ministry said.

“All these agreements, unfortunately, have been left unfulfilled, starting with the Geneva declaration. The most fundamental points that concern the establishment of a Ukrainian national dialogue and constitutional reform – they have all been left unfulfilled,” the agency’s interlocutor continued.

“This is the main reason for the lack of settlement of the crisis, and it’s to this main reason that we have to pay attention, not to formats in which we have to discuss the existing crisis without the participation of the part icipants in this crisis,” Karasin said.

Earlier on Tuesday [18 November] Yatsenyuk said in Kiev that Ukraine was inviting Russia for negotiations on the de-escalation of the situation in the east of that country. “We invite Russia to conduct serious negotiations on neutral territory. The US and EU countries are helping us in this,” Yatsenyuk said at a joint news conference in Kiev with Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg.