Opinions & Interviews

Belarus thanked for organizing Russia-Ukraine peace negotiation process

GOMEL OBLAST, 28 February (BelTA) – The delegations of Russia and Ukraine thanked Belarus for organizing the negotiation process, BelTA learned from Belarusian Minister of Foreign Affairs Vladimir Makei after the Russia-Ukraine peace talks on the Pripyat River ended on 28 February.

Vladimir Makei noted that it had been very complicated to organize contacts at the current stage. “But it is very important that both sides demonstrated readiness at some point. I think President Lukashenko’s phone call to President Zelenskyy played a very important role in it. When there were certain doubts about the need to organize this meeting as far as I can understand,” he said.

Vladimir Makei said that a number of organizational and technical aspects had proven most difficult: “President Lukashenko instructed the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Gomel Oblast administration, and the security service to arrange things in a way to prevent complaints about us. I think we’ve managed to accomplish that in the end. Although during the night we had to reconcile a number of nuances, things relating to the time of the arrival and the composition of the delegation. Things, which were essential for organizing this negotiation process, were not known until the final moment.”

“In the end everything was fine, everything was organized quite well. And when we were saying goodbyes to the Ukrainian delegation and the Russian one, they expressed huge gratitude to the Belarusian side for organizing this process. And I hope the fact that a meeting at the Belarusian-Polish border will take place in a couple of days also speaks for itself,” the Belarusian minister of foreign affairs noted.

“This meeting was necessary in order to continue contacts, which may help us resolve all the current crisis issues,” Vladimir Makei added.

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