Normandy summit dates to be set after Donbas disengagement - Ushakov
MOSCOW. Oct 10 (Interfax) - Specific dates of a Normandy-format summit cannot be discussed before progress happens in the disengagement process in Zolote and Petrivske, Russian presidential aide Yury Ushakov said.
"One more arrangement has yet to be achieved, which was agreed on at the previous summits in Paris and Berlin in 2015/16: the disengagement in the towns of Zolote and Petrivske. Yesterday, Ukraine failed to begin the actual disengagement under an invented pretext of ceasefire violation," Ushakov told journalists at a briefing in Moscow on Thursday.
Hopefully, "the process will get off the ground," "and after that it will be possible to reason more specifically about dates for holding the Normandy-format summit," he said.
Prior to this, it will also be necessary to agree on outcomes of possible decisions at the top level, Ushakov said.
"Without thorough preparation, we think such a summit would not yield necessary results; on the contrary, it would send a wrong signal. That's to say, what is needed is not a summit for a summit's sake but concrete results on the basis of implementing the Minsk Agreements," he said.
The Russian side is ready for a summit, depending on the aforementioned resolutions, Ushakov said.