Trilateral Contact Group for Ukraine to converge in Minsk on Friday afternoon
MINSK. Sept 5 (Interfax) - The Ukraine-OSCE-Russia Trilateral Contact Group assisting in the settlement of the conflict in eastern Ukraine will converge in Minsk on Friday.
The meeting will be held in the afternoon, the Belarusian Foreign Ministry press service told Interfax on Thursday. Accredited journalists will gather at the President Hotel by 1 p.m. Minsk time (2 p.m. Moscow time).
The Belarusian Foreign Ministry did not disclose the representation level of the Contact Group meeting and its venue.
Russian Ambassador in Kyiv Mikhail Zurabov, former Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma and representative of the OSCE chairperson-in-office on Ukraine Heidi Tagliavini attended the previous meeting of the Contact Group held in Minsk on September 1. The self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) was represented by its First Deputy Prime Minister Andrei Purgin, and the self-proclaimed Luhansk People's Republic (LPR) by senior militia commander Alexei Karyakin.
Moscow and Kyiv said they were expecting the September 5 meeting of the Contact Group would bring important results.
Russian President Vladimir Putin presented a Ukrainian crisis settlement plan on Wednesday. The president is hopeful his plan will help the Contact Group arrive at final accords between Kyiv and southeastern Ukraine.
In turn, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko hopes the Contact Group will sign a document to begin the implementation of the peace plan for eastern Ukraine.
DPR head Alexander Zakharchenko and his LPR counterpart Igor Plotnitsky said on Thursday they were ready "to order a ceasefire at 3 p.m. tomorrow, on September 5, in the case agreements are reached and representatives of Ukraine sign a plan of the political resolution of the conflict."
They said in a joint statement they would present in Minsk on Friday "for the Contact Group's consideration their ceasefire proposals, which will spell out guarantees of the fulfillment of this regime by the sides to the conflict."
