KIEV (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 22nd August, 2018) Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin did not rule out on Wednesday that the next ministerial meeting of the so-called Normandy Four group on the Donbas crisis settlement could take place on the sidelines of the UN General Assemblys session in September.
Earlier in the day, Klimkin said that the political directors of France, Germany, Russia and Ukraine were expected to meet in September to discuss "the concept" of a possible peacekeeping mission in Donbas.
"We are mulling whether to organize a contact at a ministerial level after this meeting [of political directors]. If we feel that there are enough topics for discussion and, above all, that progress must be made � There are many ideas, one of them is to meet on the sidelines of the [UN] General Assembly," Klimkin told reporters, as broadcast by the NewsOne tv channel.
The minister noted that there were several other ideas on the table, stressing that the key issues of the Ukraine crisis settlement were security, the swap of prisoners and detained people, and the possible deployment of a peacekeeping mission in the region.
Klimkin added that he would have a meeting with his German counterpart Heiko Maas in the coming days.
"We agreed to meet in the near future, since there are topics that require an in-depth discussion," he pointed out.
The top diplomat noted that, during the recent telephone talk with Maas, they discussed the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline project. The minister added that he would have a telephone conversation with his French counterpart Jean-Yves Le Drian soon.
The military operation in eastern Ukraine was launched by Kiev in 2014, after residents of the region refused to recognize the new Ukrainian government. In 2015, a ceasefire agreement brokered by the leaders of the Normandy Four group was reached in Minsk, but the situation has remained tense, with both parties accusing each other of violating the truce.
