Russian President Vladimir Putin is not refusing to meet with his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, but this would require proper organization, while at the moment everyone is focused on getting ready for a Normandy meeting, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Tuesday
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 12th November, 2019) Russian President Vladimir Putin is not refusing to meet with his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, but this would require proper organization, while at the moment everyone is focused on getting ready for a Normandy meeting, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Tuesday.
Former Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev earlier in the day suggested that Putin and Zelenskyy hold a meeting and proposed Kazakhstan as a neutral location for that.
Peskov remarked that Kremlin was grateful to Nazarbayev and appreciated Kazakhstan's effort to help normalize Russian-Ukrainian relations. According to the spokesman, Putin would like to restore these relations, too, but "it is impossible to do if Kiev does not reciprocate."
"Undoubtedly, Putin himself has said that he never refused to hold such meetings, and this meeting as well, but he believes that a meeting just to meet would not be useful, it has to be prepared well. So at the moment, we are all focused on preparing for Normandy Format events. For that, all the commitments taken on in Minsk should be complied with," Peskov said.
According to Peskov, there is still a lot of "homework" to do before the Normandy summit. The Kremlin spokesman added that there were no exact dates for the summit yet.
