Lavrov says no breakthroughs at Normandy Format meeting

MINSK. Nov 29 (Interfax) – Today’s meeting of the Normandy Quartet foreign ministers has brought no breakthroughs; it is noted that implementation of the Minsk Agreements in the area of security and politics remains stalled as no specific steps have been agreed upon, although the earlier agreements made by leaders of the fours countries are not being questioned, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.

“We have no breakthroughs made today, but at the same time, I consider as positive the circumstance that the agreements achieved by the leaders on October 19 are not being called into question, as it was before, particularly about the very Minsk Agreements and those decisions adopted in Paris one year ago, last October,” Lavrov told reporters following the Normandy Format meeting in which he took part.

The agreements’ implementation remains ‘stalled’, Lavrov said. “It is impossible even to agree on the sequence of steps, first of all, in the field of security and in the field of political reforms: I mean the law on the special status of certain areas in Donbas, and setting the status forth on a permanent basis in the Ukrainian constitution. I mean the amnesty and local elections. Naturally, we are linking the steps that are necessary to undertake in order to prepare all these reforms, with the steps in the field of security and the sequence of these actions was discussed [at the meeting],” Lavrov said.

However, work will be continued in the Normandy Format and within the Contact Group, including that on the level of experts, he said.

[featured image is file photo]