The Normandy four may meet in Munich in February

The possibility of a meeting of the heads of foreign ministries of the “Normandy format” countries (Ukraine, Russia, France, Germany) to resolve the situation in the Donbass on the sidelines of the Munich security conference on February 14-16 is being discussed, Ukrainian foreign Minister Vadim Priestayko said on Tuesday.


The Munich security conference, the 56th in a row, will be held on February 14-16 in Bavaria.

“We are really discussing these kinds of ideas”, – he said at a press conference in Prague.

The head of the Ukrainian foreign Ministry noted that, despite the need for a meeting, the Ministers would not want their meeting to replace the summit, which has high hopes. Priestayko also recalled that the leaders of the “Normandy format” countries at the summit in Paris in December 2019 agreed to hold the next meeting in April. “We will see if this happens”, – he added.

President Of Ukraine Vladimir Zelensky announced the implementation of the first part of the Paris agreements
At the first Normandy four summit in three years (France, Germany, Russia, and Ukraine), which was held in Paris on December 9, 2019, the parties adopted a joint communique and agreed to meet in Berlin four months later to continue working to resolve the situation in the Donbass.

The communique stressed that the Minsk agreements remain the basis for working in the Normandy format, and provides for the withdrawal of forces by the end of March 2020 in three new locations in the Donbass. The leaders also called for a ceasefire in the Donbass by the end of the year. In addition, they called on the contact group to ensure the exchange of prisoners in the Donbass “all for all” by the end of the year and to provide the Red Cross with “full and unconditional access to all detained persons”.