At the next meeting in the Normandy format, the issue of the final release of detained persons in the “all for all” format must be resolved and clear terms of troops separation along the delimitation line in Donbas must be determined, as stated by President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
“What should be the steps there? The main steps are to resolve the issue – not to raise, but to resolve the issue of the final release of all our prisoners. “All for all” – we can call it that way. The second step is the final solution to the issue of troops separation – with clear terms: Zolote, Petrivske, and then – clear terms of separation along the entire touch line. Third, if we discuss local elections in the temporarily occupied territories, we must understand that there will be a clear schedule for the withdrawal of all troops from the occupied territories before the elections,” the Head of State noted, answering journalists’ questions after the meeting with President of Slovakia Zuzana Čaputová in Kyiv.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy reminded that the last meeting of the Normandy Four took place in October 2016.
“Hence, I expect this meeting to finally take place. When we have a war in the country, we cannot have a meeting once every three to four years. We can’t wait that long, because our men die every day,” the President stressed.
He recalled that on September 2 there was a meeting in the Normandy format at the level of advisers to the heads of state. “They have prepared everything and said that we wanted not to raise issues at the meeting, but to solve them,” the Head of State emphasized.
The President of Ukraine hopes that the meeting in the Normandy format will be effective. “I expect that European countries will support Ukraine’s position. I really want to believe in that. And I expect that after that, the meetings in the Normandy format will take place not once in 3 years, but very often, until we resolve all the issues related to the return of our territories and the end of the war,” Volodymyr Zelenskyy stressed.
