The contact group on Ukraine is to hold meetings in Minsk on December 24-26. Fulfilling earlier obligations and releasing POWs and hostages are on the agenda. But journalists are not allowed to be present at the meetings.
The Belarusian side confirms that the next meeting of the contact group on Ukraine will take place in Minsk.
“In accordance with the decision of the contact group mass media will not be present during the talks on 24 December,” state-run news agency BelTA quotes MFA spokesman Dzmitry Mironchyk as saying.
According to Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin, the meeting will centre on the fulfillment of the Minsk agreements.
“What we are seeing now is a very fragile ceasefire, which results from the fulfillment of Minsk agreements precisely by us,” Klimkin told Interfax-Ukraine.
The delivery of Ukrainian humanitarian aid to the eastern regions is another important item on the agenda of the upcoming meeting, the minister stressed. “We must do so that Ukrainian humanitarian aid immediately reaches everyone who is suffering”.
The first meeting of the contact group involving representatives of the OSCE, Ukraine, Russia, and the self-declared people’s republics of Donetsk and Lugansk took place near Minsk on 31 July. In late August the Belarusian capital was chosen a regular venue for meetings of the contact group.
