Steinmeier formula is good basis for delivering Minsk agreements
Minister of Foreign and European Affairs of the Slovak Republic, chairing in OSCE, Miroslav Lajcak has said that the Steinmeier formula is the good basis for implementing Minsk agreements.
"For me the reassurance is to implement Minsk agreements in full, and to do it in full transparency and accountability. This is the reassurance and there must be no space for games being played here. And we have a manual how to read Minsk agreements, which is called Steinmeier plan. I believe this is the good basis," he said, speaking at the 16th Annual Meeting of the Yalta European Strategy (YES) in Kyiv on Saturday.
Lajcak named the elements of for restoring peace in Ukraine.
"We need a peace plan, we need tools, we need commitment to resolve and we need people support. Now here in Ukraine we have a plan it is called Minsk agreements, and we need the tools, which is the Normandy Group at the political level, we need the Trilateral Contact Group, chaired by OSCE, we have a Special Monitoring Mission and we also have that patrol track of represented by [U.S. Special Representative for Ukraine Negotiations] Kurt [Volker] here to make sure that the main track is working. What was missing here until recently was the political will, the commitment to deliver Minsk agreements," he said.
He also pointed out the need to keep international unity in supporting Ukraine.
"At the same time we need to keep the unity of international community. I don't think it would be appropriate to speak about concessions at this point because Ukraine is a victim of aggression. So we need to restore peace, we need to restore territorial integrity of Ukraine. But we need to show what we really mean it," the diplomat said.