Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Andrey Rudenko has held talks on the situations in Nagorno-Karabakh, Belarus and Ukraine with Frederic Mondoloni, the director for Continental Europe in the French Foreign Ministry, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Friday
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 04th December, 2020) Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Andrey Rudenko has held talks on the situations in Nagorno-Karabakh, Belarus and Ukraine with Frederic Mondoloni, the director for Continental Europe in the French Foreign Ministry, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Friday.
The diplomats met in Moscow earlier in the day.
"During the conversation, [the officials] exchanged views on topical issues of the situation in the CIS [Commonwealth of Independent States], including the current situation in Ukraine, Belarus and Nagorno-Karabakh," the ministry's statement read.
Notably, both Russia and France, along with the United States, cochair the Minsk Group, which is mediating the settlement of the conflict in the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region, where fresh military clashes between Armenia and Azerbaijan broke out on September 27 and were ceased starting November 10 under a Moscow-brokered ceasefire deal.
The relations between Western states and Belarus have been strained due to nationwide unrest in the country over the controversial victory of incumbent President Alexander Lukashenko in the August 9 election. Anti-government rallies have been underway across the country ever since, while the EU and the US introduced sanctions against some Belarusian officials suspected to be responsible for violent protest suppression and electoral fraud.
The Ukrainian conflict dates back to 2014, when Kiev initiated an offensive against the Luhansk and Donetsk areas in the eastern Donbas region after they proclaimed independence from the Ukrainian capital. Russia and France are among the Normandy Four group, mediating the conflict in the country and advancing the implementation of the so-called Minsk agreements for the conflict settlement.
