Issue of changing procedures for implementing Minsk Agreements provisions should be discussed not only with Normandy Four but with DPR, LPR too - Peskov
ASHGABAT. Oct 11 (Interfax) - Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's idea of changing the procedures for implementing the provisions of the Minsk Agreements should be discussed with Moscow, Paris, and Berlin, as well as with the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics (DPR and LPR), Russian presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov said.
"There is the issue here of what Moscow thinks about it, and this is an important issue. But besides Moscow, it is also important what Berlin thinks about it, what Paris thinks about it. But there is another important question: how the two republics feel about it. This should not be forgotten and it should not be ignored," Peskov told reporters on Friday when asked about Russia's attitude toward this initiative.
Answering a follow-up question as to whether Russia is ready to discuss such possibility of changing the sequence of the provisions of the Minsk Agreements, he said, "It is not currently under consideration."
"For that, someone has to officially say that they are withdrawing from the Minsk action plan. Does that mean that Ukraine is withdrawing from the Minsk action plan? Then it will be a totally different modality, and in order to talk about something different after this modality, among other things, it will be necessary to talk to representatives of the two republics," Peskov said.
Zelensky earlier told reporters he was not satisfied with the procedures for implementing the provisions of the Minsk Agreements and intended to raise this issue in the meeting between the leaders of the Normandy-format countries (Ukraine, Germany, France, and Russia).
"Overall, I am not satisfied with the Minsk document that was signed, but we are looking for answers to some complicated questions that are in the 'Minsk' and most importantly we are looking for an arrangement of events to be carried out there, a sequence of events," Zelensky told journalists during a press marathon in Kyiv on Thursday.
"We are not happy about the whole arrangement that is in the Minsk document, we want to discuss all this in the Normandy format," he said.
"All this will have to be discussed among the [Normandy] leaders, not representatives [of the parties involved in the Trilateral Contact Group negotiation] in Minsk, because, unfortunately, the representatives in Minsk have been unable to resolve this issue," Zelensky said.