Moscow ready to attend meeting of CIS deputy foreign ministers, awaiting Kyiv's consent - ministry
MOSCOW. March 13 (Interfax) - Moscow is ready to attend an extraordinary meeting of CIS deputy foreign ministers in Minsk of March 14, the Russian Foreign Ministry said.
"Through the note dated March 11 the Russian Foreign Ministry informed the CIS Committee of its consent to this meeting on March 14 in Minsk. We want to confirm that we were and remain ready for the meeting. The matter is now up to the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry which stated in its note that such a meeting is unacceptable for it," the Russian Foreign Ministry said on its website.
"It was with regret that the Russian Foreign Ministry perceived the comments by Ukrainian Foreign Ministry representatives, which surfaced in mass media, and the note sent to the CIS Executive Committee, about the alleged 'refusal by the CIS member states to discuss the situation in Ukraine'," the ministry said.
"We would like to explain the chronology and essence of the events. On March 11 Minsk hosted, at Ukraine's initiative, an extraordinary session of the Council of Plenipotentiary Permanent Representatives to the charter-based and other bodies of the Commonwealth, which was chaired by Ivan Bunechko, the Ukrainian Plenipotentiary Permanent Representative to the CIS Coordination Institutes. The attendees were discussing the CIS member states' proposals in response to the Ukrainian initiative to hold an extraordinary session of the CIS Council of foreign ministers," the Russian Foreign Ministry said.
"At the end of the session the parties decided that 'due to the lack of consensus among a majority of the CIS member states over the Ukraine-proposed extraordinary session of the CIS Council of Foreign Ministers in the city of Kyiv on March 12, it was decided to back a proposal for a meeting to be held in the city of Minsk on March 14 at the level of CIS deputy foreign ministers to discuss the current situation in Ukraine," the Russian Foreign Ministry said.
