MOSCOW, October 28 (RIA Novosti) – Foreign ministers of Russia and Ukraine will meet in the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don on Monday a month before Kiev is expected to sign a landmark agreement with the European Union.
Ukraine, inching closer to joining the European Union, is slated to sign an association agreement with the bloc on November 28-29.
The Russian Foreign Ministry said Sergei Lavrov of Russia and Leonid Kozhara of Ukraine would meet for talks on various bilateral aspects of the two states’ foreign policies. The ministry did not mention whether Ukraine’s EU aspirations are among issues to be discussed at the meeting.
The meeting, to be held within the framework of the Russian-Ukrainian international cooperation subcommittee, will focus on emerging international challenges and threats, regional conflicts, border disputes, international organizations and other issues.
“Besides, the chiefs of foreign ministries are set to discuss other pressing issues of bilateral Russian-Ukrainian cooperation, [and] important international problems, including European security,” the Russian foreign ministry said.
Lavrov and Kozhara will also pay special attention to settlement in Moldova's breakaway region of Transdnestr. The peacekeeping operation in the region, which has maintained de facto independence from Moldova since a brief war in 1992, is performed by the Collective Peacekeeping Forces (CPF), comprising Russian, Transdnestrian and Moldovan troops and 10 Ukrainian observers.
