Lavrov to take part in Normandy format ministerial meeting on April 13 - Foreign Ministry

MOSCOW, April 9. /TASS/. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov is due to participate in the Normandy format ministerial meeting in Berlin on April 13, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin has confirmed to TASS. "Such a meeting will indeed take place," Karasin said. "Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will take part in it," he said. The meeting in the Normandy format (Russia, Ukraine, Germany, France) will focus on the implementation of the Minsk agreements, the diplomat said. "The situation here is not very good. Kiev keeps hampering their implementation under various pretexts," he said. Ukraine’s President Pyotr Poroshenko said on Wednesday Kiev was preparing a Normandy Four meeting at the level of foreign ministers to discuss a possible deployment of a peacekeeping mission to Donbass. Russia’s Foreign Ministry has earlier repeatedly stated that the Ukrainian leadership’s initiative on peacekeepers distracts attention from Kiev’s failure to fulfill the Minsk agreements. The latest meeting of foreign ministers in the Normandy format was held on February 24 in Paris. On February 12, negotiations in the so-called Normandy format were held in the Belarusian capital Minsk, bringing together Russian President Vladimir Putin, French President Francois Hollande, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Ukrainian President Pyotr Poroshenko. Simultaneously, a meeting of the Contact Group on Ukrainian settlement was held in Minsk. The Minsk agreements were signed as a result that envisage ceasefire in Ukraine’s south-east, heavy weaponry withdrawal, prisoner exchange, local elections in Donbass and constitutional reform in Ukraine. Read more