KIEV, November 21 (Sputnik) – The Minsk process involving Ukraine, Russia and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe is the optimal basic format for reconciliation in Ukraine, the Ukrainian president said Friday.
Talks on Ukrainian reconciliation have been conducted in four formats so far — the Minsk format, the Geneva format, the Weimar format and the Normandy format.
On November 18, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov spoke in favor of continuing the Minsk talks as they offered a unique format for negotiations, being the only format where the Kiev government and southeastern Ukraine's independence supporters were represented alongside Russia and the OSCE. However, United States is not party to the Minsk negotiations.
In mid-April, Kiev launched a military operation against independence supporters in Ukraine's southeastern regions.
The Minsk talks on September 5 led to a ceasefire agreement between Kiev and people's republics of Donetsk and Luhansk. Subsequently a memorandum was adopted on September 19 that specified steps for the truce implementation. However, despite the agreement, the opposing sides have repeatedly accused one another of the ceasefire regime violations.
