UNITED NATIONS, September 4 (RIA Novosti) - Ukraine's Ambassador to the United Nations Yuriy Sergeyev said Thursday that the situation in the violence-torn country worsened after the August 26 Minsk talks on Ukraine.
Since the meeting of the Contact Group, comprising Russia, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in Minsk on August 26, “the situation started to deteriorate immediately afterward,” the envoy said.
Nevertheless, Sergeyev said, “we hope that on Friday, trilateral contact group would begin negotiations on the process of peaceful settlement of the situation in Donetsk and Luhansk regions and real steps for the achievement of peace would be made.”
On Wednesday, the UN said that Secretary General Ban Ki-moon welcomed the news of the “contact between President Poroshenko and President Putin regarding a step by step plan toward peaceful resolution of the conflict.”
“The Secretary General stresses that such a plan can only succeed if all sides display good will and take concrete steps toward implementation, including in the upcoming consultations between the Trilateral Group and armed groups which we understand will take place in Minsk on September 5,” the UN said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart Petro Poroshenko discussed the first steps to be taken to bring an end to the bloodshed in southeastern Ukraine over the telephone on Wednesday. According to the Kremlin, the views of the leaders on the issue were aligned.
On Wednesday, Poroshenko said he would be able to order a ceasefire on September 4 starting from 2 p.m. local time (11:00 GMT). The leaders of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk people’s republics also said they were ready to order a ceasefire on Friday afternoon if a peace plan was signed during negotiations in Minsk on September 5.
