BRUSSELS (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 13th December, 2019) European Parliament President David Sassoli on Thursday said that the European Union treated the results of the recently held Normandy format talks on the Ukrainian conflict "with caution," and hopes that they would bring about a change to the status quo.
On Monday, presidents of France, Germany, Russia and Ukraine held talks in Paris to discuss the conflict in the eastern Ukrainian breakaway region of Donbas. This so-called Normandy Four format has been in hiatus for over three years.
"The European Union is expressing caution, and I think at this point in time we would support that position. Naturally, I very much hope that we will get some signals that the trend is being reversed," Sassoli said, replying to a journalist who asked if the Normandy summit is going to impact the EU's policy vis-a-vis Russia anyhow.
Sassouli also stressed that the peace process in Ukraine is a matter of security for Europe.
The summit in Paris concluded in a joint communique in which the Normandy leaders confirmed commitment to the Minsk agreements of 2014 and 2015. In concrete terms, it comes down to immediate ceasefire and exchange of all conflict-related prisoners by year-end, amendments to the Ukrainian constitution that would ensure special status to Donbas, and equidistant pull-out of forces by the end of coming March.
The conflict in the eastern Ukrainian regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, known together as Donbas, began in 2014. These regions proclaimed independence after what they considered to be a coup in Kiev, and the Ukrainian government launched an offensive in retaliation. The Normandy format talks were established in June 2014 as a mechanism to promote political settlement of the conflict in Donbas. Despite bringing about several important agreements, the format was halted since October 2016.
