Brussels, 04/03/2016 (Agence Europe) - At a new Normandy-format meeting that lasted over four hours in Paris on Thursday 3 March, the French, German, Ukrainian, and Russian foreign affairs ministers set some target deadlines.
“We would like the elections (in Donbass) to take place before the end of the first six months of 2016”, French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault told a press conference at the end of the meeting. He said that the Normandy-format ministers had underlined the importance of the Ukrainian government and parliament developing and adopting electoral legislation so that these elections might take place. Ayrault added that the ministers had asked the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to “provide concrete and practical options to secure the elections adequately”. “We considered that there could not be any elections if security was not ensured”, he said.
The ministers also discussed the consolidation of the ceasefire in Eastern Ukraine, calling on the parties to reaffirm their commitment to refrain from using weapons in the security zone. The foreign ministers agreed on the creation of a mechanism, “by 30 April 2016”, for preventing and settling incidents. The ministers called for the “swift and complete” implementation of the agreement on de-mining, which was reached the previous day by the trilateral contact group. Ayrault added that the prisoners and illegally detained people will have to be released and exchanged by 30 April 2016.
A meeting without real progress. Although Ayrault thought that the meeting had enabled them “to go a step further”, his counterparts were more pessimistic. “To be honest, we can't be satisfied - either with the situation on the ground or at the end of the meeting”, Germany's Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier told press, saying that he sometimes had the impression that Russia and Ukraine had forgotten the gravity of the situation. “We need bold decisions rather than miniscule steps in order to implement the Minsk agreements successfully”, he said. In his view, the meeting did not enable “progress as regards the political process” for settling the conflict. Asked whether the meeting had enabled progress, Ukraine's Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin responded negatively. “No, I didn't have this feeling”, he said. On Friday 4 March, Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov accused Ukraine of being at the origin of the lack of consensus on holding the elections. Ayrault and Steinmeier “proposed calling on the parties to agree on the organisation of local elections towards June-July” (…) We were ready to support this proposal but the Ukrainian side asked that this point be not insisted upon. Consensus on this issue was not found in the end”, Lavrov stated. (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)